Month: June 2025

I know less than ten people who have had a child die.  Although I couldn’t begin to understand the depths of what they were going through, or what to say to them, I  thought their grief was something they would slowly move through, eventually making their way to the other side. That is now very unsettling to me, to have put their grief into a linear process of healing, assuming they would reach the other side, but how would I have understood until I experienced it for myself?  A family member told me shortly after Emery died. “I now know how to respond to other people’s grief in a much more empathetic manner.”  It’s been a terrible way to learn empathy, as well as the depths that grief can reach.  To those to whom I thought my condolences were enough, my sincere apologies.   I was wrong.

“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be,” Joan Didion, from her book, “The Year of Magical Thinking.”  It sure isn’t, although I never anticipated what it would be.  And to Joan Didion’s observation, I’ll add, it’s also not being continuously hunched over with head in hands and a Kleenex box in front of you (well, sometimes), or not being able to get out of bed (again, sometimes), but rather, it’s learning how to adjust to the new reality that’s been thrown at you while learning to process the change one minute, one hour, one day at a time. 

Some days, the reality of grief is a closed fist coming straight to my heart, and other days, I muster up the strength to look the other way, but only after I throw some obscenities in its direction first.

I live in two worlds. One where I pretend everything is alright, because that’s what everyone wants and needs for me right now, and the other, where my heart is silently screaming in pain.  Neither world feels comfortable or normal or remotely like home, and sometimes I have a foot in both.  It is a precarious balance that feels like my shoes are on the wrong feet with slick soles and unsure terrain.

Grief also feels like homesickness to me; the craving and need to step back into the place that holds familiarity and comfort. I’m still trying to figure out where I find my home while circumnavigating a huge crevasse in the center of where I live.  I feel like I’m walking on tip-toes, peering into deep holes until vertigo hits, then backing up and stepping back into my life, pretending it is normal, and buying tomatoes and basil at the store because I forgot there was a planting season this year. I try to smile when the cashier asks me how it’s going, while adding another chocolate caramel to the conveyer belt.  

I get up every morning, make my coffee, open my computer, and write. I write daily letters to Emery (the texts and the phone calls I can no longer make) and fill pages on my computer, where one emotion easily turns into 1,700 words by the time I finish my second cup. My typed words are how I try to make sense of something that is impossible to understand. 

Grief is a hole, a void and a space of what used to be that becomes the placeholder for a constant replaying of what could have been and will never be.  My daughter, Emery, died and my heart and my life have been shattered. Even if it were possible to put all the pieces back together again, it would never be the same. I like to think of the Japanese process of Kintsugi, where the cracks of something broken are filled with precious metals. In the repairs to myself, my heart, and my soul, there would be a tangled roadmap of silver lines, intersecting and crossing over each other in the Kintsugi method of repair. Maybe it would be beautiful or interesting, but not the same as it was before.  Never the same. I’ve been given the unexpected task of learning how to live in a world that is missing one of its biggest anchors, and it feels unstable and empty. That feeling of instability is being played out in front of me, literally, with a broken ankle, as if I needed a real-life visual aid of confirmation.

I’ve had an ache in my chest, a shortness of breath, a clinched jaw that I don’t realize is clinched, and tears that roll down my cheeks without me realizing I’m crying.  The physical symptoms are difficult, as I’ve never navigated anything like this before. Still, I’d rather have the physical symptoms than the emotional.  The profound anguish, the hopelessness, and the confusion as to who I am or who I am becoming are more painful than any of the physical symptoms.  I can find temporary relief with my ankle, with ice and elevation and two Advil, but the emotional aspect, the reality of my life without my beautiful daughter, Emery, is a much different kind of pain.  I’d rather wear the boot and take the Advil.

Grief has become my tricky sidekick, who shows up unexpectedly and without warning or invitation.  I’ve gotten used to that.  I was having dinner a few weeks ago with one of Emery’s dearest friends, and we were seated at a table in a corner, with my seat facing into the restaurant and her’s to the entryway where no other table could see her.  We were recalling a story about Emery, and I started crying.  Ashley graciously offered to change seats with me so I wouldn’t be facing the many tables in the room.  I told her I appreciated her offer for my privacy, but that I had become comfortable crying, even sobbing, in public.  I also told her that I was sure Emery would have shaken her head at the way I was now styling the stamped silver barrette that used to be her’s. I needed Emery’s help. I glanced down at what I was wearing. I got the outfit right though, didn’t I?  Emery was right there with us. We drank flutes of champagne and in between tears, we laughed.

Never did I think crying in public would be something I’d become comfortable with, but when you do it so often, it’s no longer a unique, isolated incident.  A few weeks ago, when I was in Sedona for a week with various therapeutic practitioners, the sobbing in restaurants happened often, but became more of a spectacle as I was alone. I was exhausted at the end of the day, as digging into one’s heart and soul takes a tremendous amount of energy.  By the time I’d be seated at a restaurant, at the very unfashionable hour of 4:00 or 4:30, I would look like I had walked myself there with shoes on the wrong feet and clothes that were inside out and backwards.  It felt awkward.  I felt awkward, like nothing fit right.  Then, to start crying when a song began to play that evoked a specific time and memory, only made me more of a spectacle.  Or perhaps no one, short of the server, even noticed.  Either way, I no longer cower in embarrassment with displays of sadness and tears.  I just keep the dinner napkin in close reach.

Grief has become my unlikely teacher.  It is teaching me how to slow down and live with a presence that is new to me.  I used to multitask my life,  often resulting in less-than-desirable outcomes, and frequently having to redo what I had done so quickly and haphazardly the first time.  My brain can no longer operate that way.  I have learned through the many books I’ve read lately that grief affects the brain’s ability to perform tasks in the manner that had once been easy and routine.  The brain is using much of its capacity to figure out the enormity of what has happened, leaving less space for the daily tasks.  For example, I brought my knitting to Sedona, thinking I’d knit in the evenings.  I didn’t.  I’m usually a proficient knitter, but lately, I have spent more time unraveling and re-knitting to the point that the yarn is frazzled and tired of being worked.  On one of my last days in Sedona, I took my knitting out to the lovely deck of my hotel room, with a view of the red rocks in front of me and a gentle breeze coming in from the side.  I took the yarn, needles, and pattern out of my bag, with the hopeful anticipation that a new project always brings.  I realized I had brought not only the wrong needle size, but the two needles were different sizes.  My brain is not operating at full tilt.  I can’t even be trusted with knitting.  

I have cut storm drains and landscape rocks too close when parking, resulting in the need to buy two new tires in the past several months due to irreparable damage.  I’ve ordered clothing online and received two or even three of the same item because I added the item to the online shopping cart multiple times, and that is exactly what was sent — multiple items of the same thing.  I did that three times.  This has forced me to slow down to an almost stopping speed in order to get things right, and I’ve got to say, I don’t hate the new, slower, more in-the-moment version of me. I know this would also make Emery happy as she was constantly telling me to slow down and do one thing at a time. It is in the quiet, unfettered moments that I connect to Emery and feel her presence. If that means I accomplish less in a day because I’m moving slower and doing less, so be it.  I have to be present to win. 

The following words on grief popped up on my social media, who knows me well, even correcting my spelling of morning to mourning. It was as good an explanation as to how I feel right now as I’ve seen.

Grief is like surfing.  Except you’re blindfolded. In a hurricane.  And your surfboard is on fire. And the people on the shore are shouting surfing strategies for a storm they’ve never surfed.  And then shaking their heads at how you handle the waves.

I think of this every time I place my hand on my heart for comfort, but also to ensure that my life vest, which my family and friends have so lovingly put into place, is still there.  

Random and unexpected things and places have become significant recently,  as they evoke memories of my 34 years with Emery. She was so woven into my life that it’s hard for me to know who I am without her. My search for her continues, even though I know she’s gone. It was Emery who asked me to leave Kansas City and move to Boulder, knowing only her, Miles, and baby Arlo.  It was Emery who bought me bone broth every day after my knee surgery, braided my hair, and remade my couch bed and instructed Arlo and Muna not to get too close to Laudie’s bandaged leg.  It was Emery who drove me to my colonoscopies, my four rounds of gum surgery several years ago, and brought food and flowers when I had COVID (3 times) and FaceTimed daily during the lockdown.  After delivering bags of groceries to my porch, always with flowers, we would stand on opposite sides of my yard, maintaining a safe distance, and talk. We’d both be in tears when we said goodbye.  She once told me we were so intertwined that sometimes she didn’t know where I ended and she started. I had thought only moms said things like that. Not only does it feel like a large part of my heart is gone, but it feels like a part of my very being has also left.  The memories, often surprising, are tiny sparks of connection that I either grab onto to absorb what they have to offer, or I avoid them, as I don’t feel emotionally ready. Videos of Emery fall into that category. I still can’t watch them.

Sometimes the nudges of yet one more thread that has started to unravel in the way Emery and I were woven together come unexpectedly, as well as the tears that follow.  I was at the doctor’s office earlier today to see how my ankle is healing.  Before meeting with the orthopedic doctor, a nurse came in to go over my information.  She asked if Emery Golson was still my emergency contact.  I bit my lip and said, “No.  I’ll change it.”  She didn’t comment, but why would she?  She didn’t know or need to know why Emery Golson was no longer my emergency contact.  A few minutes later, when Dr. Kramer told me my ankle was worse and I needed a different boot, one that came to my knee, and would need to wear it whenever I was upright. I asked, “Even in the middle of the night…” and he interrupted me before I could finish. “Yes, when you go to the bathroom,” adding it’s the first question patients ask. He added that if it isn’t better in three weeks, we would need to talk about surgery.

Tears started rolling down my face.  It wasn’t the surgery that brought on the tears. It was doing all of the hard stuff without Emery; without having Emery to call on my drive home, who would tell me it would be OK because she’d be there for me every step of the way.  Without Emery to bring the bone broth and anything else I needed because I was also told I can’t drive (it’s my right ankle). I had not seen Dr. Kramer initially, or he would have said no to my drive to Sedona. Instead, I went to Urgent Care, and they said the drive was OK, and also put me in the wrong boot. I had driven over 1,500 miles in the past few weeks, likely not helping my injury, and now, I’ve been told not to drive – not even to the store. Dr. Kramer noted the tears, then went on to tell me that although the recovery would be longer, the surgery would be pretty simple.  I nodded and thanked him.  He told me there was no need to thank me as he knew he had just ruined my day.  I thought about the woman at the bar in Santa Fe who saw my boot (my very short and incorrect boot ) and said, “You just never know, do you?”  No.  You never know. Those words have become my mantra.

Another memory took me by surprise yesterday, and I followed the nudge to understand it further. I was coming home from some errands, and passed a park that had a teeter-totter.  It’s not a piece of equipment commonly seen in parks now, as they have been replaced with climbing apparatuses and structures far cooler than the plank on a fulcrum.  I slowed down for a better look.  I don’t know why.  I pulled into the parking lot, still not sure why, but felt intrigued by the sight of the bright orange teeter-totter on the blue metal base.  I followed the lead of a teeter-totter that became a door to so much more than a piece of dated playground equipment.

I recalled a park where Emery and I used to go when her brothers were in preschool.  There was a playground area and a trail that went around a small lake.  After she had had enough of the swings and slide, we’d walk around the lake, with her in the stroller or her stuffed animals in the stroller while we both pushed it.  There was a teeter-totter in the playground area, and she was curious about it and wanted to “try it.”  I put her on one end while I gently added weight to the other, lifting her slowly in an up-and-down motion.  She was not impressed.  I slowly released her to the ground so she could get off and make her way to a piece of equipment that was more interesting.  My thoughts on the teeter-totter were similar, but I was more afraid of the piece of equipment than being bored by it.  I don’t remember the specifics of what brought on the fear for me, only that I was knocked to the ground when the person providing ballast on the other side exited without warning. I’m sure it wasn’t as dramatic as my words might indicate, but when you’re a small child and are not anticipating being dropped to the ground, it’s scary. Teeter-totters only function if someone is on the opposite end and there is an element of trust that they won’t leave you up in the air or worse, won’t drop you when they’re done.  Without the other person, the piece of equipment is useless.  

So there I sat, in the parking lot of a park, completely devoid of children, focused on a piece of equipment that I had grown to hate as a child. 

Playgrounds.  Memories.  I let my mind wander and thought about Emery and me as adults on a teeter-totter, with me having to adjust my placement as she was the lighter one.  Of course, this wasn’t a memory as Emery and I had never been on a teeter-totter together as adults, but the visual came to mind. The teeter-totter was a picture of how I feel these days.  It feels like Emery abruptly left the teeter-totter, leaving me to crash to the ground unexpectedly.  She is no longer on the other side of the plank to offer ballast.  I’m on the edge of the teeter-totter,  my knees bent up to my shoulders, looking up at the other end where Emery should be, but she’s gone, and no one is there to help lift me off this spot where I’ve crashed.  There are things you have to carry solo, and the grief of a mother losing a child is one such thing.  A hug, a phone call, a FaceTime, or an attentive listener who hands over a Kleenex mid-story, are all beautiful and helpful, but at the end of the day,  I am navigating this journey alone.  It is a solo job.

Nothing makes sense, including me sitting in the parking lot at a park staring at a teeter-totter that is conjuring up memories and made-up stories. Yet, in the stillness, where I live now, I see what I need to see: the pieces to a very large puzzle whose placement of pieces has become a daunting task, not knowing what that something will ultimately become. It’s hard to put a puzzle together, knowing that a significant portion will be missing. Emery once told me while we were working on a jigsaw puzzle, “Border first, Mom, then the rest will be easier.”  She was good at putting puzzles together, a skill her son, Arlo, also has.  She was also good at denying she was good with puzzles or even liked them, for that matter.  Well, Emery, I’m remembering what you told me regarding puzzles (whether you liked them or not).  I’m searching for pieces with straight edges that will serve as a frame for everything else, then the rest will be easier.  I don’t think the teeter-totter was a border piece, but I know it fits in there somewhere.

Two more glasses of ice would be brought before my dinner was over.

I ate at the restaurant next to my hotel,  not because it’s good, but because it’s easy.  It was closed for the past six days for renovations, and now, on my last night, it has opened again.  I ate there my first night a week ago and bookended it with my dinner tonight..  The food is not great, but the ease of not having to get into my car to drive somewhere is a huge gift for me tonight. However, the closure all week got me out and about to better restaurants, one in particular where I could watch small planes taking off and landing from my seat at the bar.  I’ve eaten there three times this week.  It also happens to be in a vortex, one of four in Sedona.  They are places where the Earth’s energy is particularly strong and is said to enhance spiritual growth and healing. I didn’t realize it was in a vortex when I went the first time, but I liked the restaurant even more for not advertising the vortex with specialty vortex drinks, or vortex vegetable of the day. The Mesa Grill felt comfortable to me, and I loved being able to watch small planes taxi to their tie-down spots so close to where I was eating at the bar.

Now that the restaurant attached to my hotel has reopened, it was the easier option tonight.  I’ve spent the past five days immersed in various forms of therapy, very little of it traditional talk therapy.  I’ve had equine therapy, where the horses co-regulated their nervous system to mine, leaving me with a feeling of peace and a broken ankle that no longer hurt.  I’ve hiked, well, given the circumstances, walked a short distance, to a vortex site where the practitioner brought me a chair to sit on and we talked, listened, and absorbed our beautiful surroundings.  I’ve been introduced to a form of healing breathwork that is paired with specific music and learned about the native teachings of the medicine wheel and its significance to the seasons and the elements of the earth, all while honoring Emery.  It was a ceremony that began with a coyote standing in front of the practitioner’s car as he drove us to a parking spot at Crescent Moon Park.  The coyote stood in front of the car long enough that Jim put the car in park, while he explained the significance of a coyote’s presence.  That coyote and Jim seemed to know, and so I listened and watched, and it was five minutes of a coyote looking at us, not moving, that I’ll never forget.  So, tonight,  I’m exhausted in the same way I feel after being in a writing workshop, but without the social element.  It has all caught up to me, and all I want to do is sleep.  That being said, I opted for the marginal food at the restaurant I could walk to from my room at the Wilde Hotel.  

I asked my server for a glass of ice as I could see the margarita I ordered felt thin on ice, and I like to be able to sip through the cubes.  Did she notice I was in a different headspace than the rest of her customers, including the man on the opposite side of the patio who also had a boot on but seemed to be doing just fine with it and life in general?  I don’t know.  But she brought me a glass filled with crushed ice every time she was near my table.  Crushed ice is barely ice, but I thanked her, and the glasses filled with ice melted as I made my way through my salad.

A mother and a daughter were seated next to me.  I know this for a fact as I heard the younger of the two refer to the older woman as Mom.  They wore similar shoes.  Our tables on the outside patio were very close to each other, and their feet were in full view for me.  I wondered if the daughter had told her mom about the shoes and the striped pants she wore, which seemed bold in contrast to the rest of her outfit. I’m guessing yes.  As I’ve said in many posts, I’m a self-proclaimed snoop, and I couldn’t help but overhear that it was the mom’s birthday.  The daughter took photos of her mom and showed them to her.  The mom didn’t like any of them.  I understood.  It was Emery and me, right down to the striped pants on the mom who rejected every photo but then said they were all fine, because that’s what moms do.

The daughter discussed an upcoming trip to Paris, mentioning that she might stay.  The mom was hesitant about that idea.  I wanted to insert my opinion and tell the mom to respond with unbridled enthusiasm.  She can always visit, but I didn’t think the daughter was serious, and I think the mom knew that, simply because moms know, sometimes even before the daughter knows.

I noticed the daughter was wearing an engagement ring and had to wonder if the two of them had shopped for a dress, found a location, or had made any decisions together. Were they local to Sedona?  I didn’t think so.  Maybe they came up for the weekend from Phoenix, or one of them did, and the other flew in for a mother/daughter weekend.  My mind goes wild when I’m seated alone and spying on the table next to me.  Sometimes it’s for entertainment purposes, but tonite, it felt deeper, like I needed to step into a time I no longer had access to.

My server brought me another glass with ice.  She’s trying. When she left, I looked at my phone because it seemed like the right thing to do, rather than at the mother-daughter duo next to me. And because of my shifting algorithm, a post on grief appeared first.  It offered tips to calm your mind when logic doesn’t work.  It instructed me to run through the alphabet, coming up with three words for each letter, with a free pass for “X.” I counted cars in the parking lot in front of me instead.  There were too many white ones.  I returned to the alphabet exercise, stopping at J, while feeling annoyed with the letter J because so few words start with J.  Grief is a strange animal.  It had me angry with the letter J.

The server came to ask me if everything was okay, awkwardly, then quickly backed away from me because I was crying. I knew she was referencing my food and not my frame of mind, but I could sense her uneasiness with what she had just asked me.  Is everything Ok?  People crying, even silently and quietly, are scary.  I couldn’t blame her as I would have done the same thing.  I’m a tough customer these days.  After wiping the tears and composing myself, I asked her for the check without making eye contact.  She kindly asked if I was a local, and I kindly responded, no.  When she set down the check, she told me to have a safe journey, to which I smiled and said, “Thank you.”  My server is afraid of me.  I’m also afraid of myself. 

After five days of intense therapy, very little of it involving talk therapy, I had been ripped open and exposed to the elements.  I probably should not have been out in public.  My soul has gone through an excavation, as I picked through the layers of sadness and grief.  I’m terribly vulnerable.  It feels like I’ve had open heart surgery and am walking home from the hospital.  That doesn’t seem like a good idea on any front.  I left my server an inappropriately large tip.  Maybe she’ll understand I meant well, but walking home from open heart surgery is a difficult journey, even more so in a medical boot.  If neighboring tables didn’t see the tears, they for sure noticed the boot, as, regardless of how carefully I step, it makes an awkward clumping noise. 

As I was exiting the patio of the restaurant, I made eye contact with the man I saw earlier who was also wearing a boot, but his boot, also on his right foot, extended to his knee.  Mine only goes to several inches above my ankle.  We looked at each other and smiled.  He said, “Looks like you’re getting around fine despite the boot, huh?”  To which I answered, “Well, at least my boot doesn’t go to my knee like yours!”  He smiled, and I walked away thinking that my point of gratitude this evening was that my boot didn’t go to my knee.  It feels like bottom feeding for positives, but I’ll take it, with both arms outstretched.