Month: September 2025

Today is day 257. 257 days of feeling lost, untethered, disconnected. 257 days of waking up to the same thought. She’s gone. Emery died. She’s never coming back. 257 days of not being able to text her or call her, but mostly text her because she hated talking on the phone. 257 days of a missing that is so deep I feel it in my bones, and they hurt. 257 days of holding my breath when family members don’t immediately return my call or text. My mind goes to the dark side because now I know that terrible and unpredictable things not only can happen, but do. 257 nights of either sleeping twelve hours and still not feeling ready to get up, or not sleeping at all. 257 days of wondering where I went and if I’ll ever be back. 217 days of counting days, starting on day 40, which is a significant day in many religions, but only became significant to me because there was a gathering of some of Emery’s friends on day 40, and I wrote about it in my journal of letters to her. The next day, I wrote 41 next to the date, and I’ve been writing the day ever since.

I remember day 100. I was in Manzanita, Oregon, staying in a cottage on the beach that I had rented the year before. This year was a much different stay. My walks on the beach were tearful and sad, and didn’t hold the wonder and awe they held the previous year. I was marking time until my sons and their families’ arrival for a visit. When I wasn’t walking on the beach, I was sleeping on the blue couch, the one that faced the ocean, and held me during the afternoons when everything else felt too hard. Napping was an easy escape.

That morning, on day 100, I was walking down the beach when my son-in-law, Miles, called me. We exchanged grief stories: What do your days look like? How’s your sleep? How are Arlo and Muna? How are you? Then he told me he needed to talk to me about something, words that had me finding a place to sit down. He was considering a move to Costa Rica with the children…for a year. It was something he and Emery had discussed after their second trip there, and something Emery had also mentioned to me. My first reaction was panic, thinking he couldn’t possibly take Arlo and Muna, or himself, away from their support systems. Or me, which is really where I landed. It would be more loss on top of the loss I was still buried under. He told me he was struggling with living in the house, surrounded by Emery’s things. Nosara, Costa Rica, would be a start fresh, where they would feel Emery’s energy, but not be inundated by her things. It made sense. How could they possibly heal while navigating around the massive crater that the loss of Emery had left? Maneuvering around the hole in their lives while doing the things that Emery had always been a part of — school drop off and pick up, going to the store, friends’ houses for play dates, excursions for ice cream, the park, and all the other places that everyday life took them, but without their anchor.

Arlo and Muna were following in their Dad’s lead…tiptoeing around the places, the feelings and the things that were Emery, while attempting to find as much normalcy as possible. Leaving made sense, and moving to Nosara, even more so, as they had dreamed of living there for a year to raise bilingual and multicultural children. By the time we hung up, I had given Miles my full approval. Then, with the Pacific Ocean in front of me, I wept. It would be another goodbye. Another loss. I started wondering where I belonged. Emery was the one who brought me to Boulder, and now she was gone. And soon, Miles and the children would be gone as well.

I felt a similar disconnect with Boulder that Miles was experiencing. So many places had become emotional triggers. I couldn’t go into shops where Emery and I frequented, or where the owners knew her, or restaurants where we often ate. I have left my home more than I’ve stayed.

Since January 4, 2025, I’ve been on 16 flights, mainly to LA and Portland, Oregon, and have slept in 18 different beds, as well as one night in a chair in the ICU at Foothills Hospital in Boulder. I’ve driven from Boulder to Portland and back, from Boulder to Kansas City and back three times, and from Boulder to LA, where I’m currently staying for the month of September. Boulder has become a difficult place for me to be, but at the same time, it is where so much of Emery was, and I don’t want to lose that.

Recently, I visited her house and walked through her wildflower spiral garden, a spiral I had often walked with Arlo and Muna in the summer. One particular day, while Arlo and Muna were trying to find their “pet” toad, who lived among the flowers, I glanced over and saw Emery standing at the side of the garden, smiling —something she often did while watching me play with Arlo and Muna. I returned her smile, a gesture deep with emotion and understood by both of us: love, for each other and love for Arlo and Muna. Afterwards, I gave her some suggestions on how she could control the weeds the following year, and she smiled and nodded her head, but we both knew she wouldn’t do it. Any of it, because she liked a wild garden, but knew I’d make the suggestions as I did every summer. Being there without her or the children was one of the loneliest moments I’ve felt since she died. It was more confirmation to me that Miles had made the right decision by moving to Costa Rica for the year, even though I missed them dearly.

Over the last 257 days, my writing has shifted to pieces about Emery and grief because I write about what life shows me and what I feel, and that is my current life loop. My routine remains unchanged and I still get up every morning at 7:00, make my coffee, and sit down at my computer to write for at least two hours.

Shortly before the Costa Rica move, Muna came over for a sleepover. While she was carefully taking her things out of the toiletry bag that had once belonged to Emery and organizing them on my bathroom counter (her toothbrush, toothpaste, a plastic unicorn, a tube of lipstick and two of Emery’s hair clips), she spotted my robe hanging next to my bathtub. My grandchildren are curious about things they don’t usually see of mine, like pajamas and robes, as well as what I look like when I brush my teeth, what I read before I go to sleep and if I sleep with a nightlight on. Muna told me my robe was beautiful. I agreed and told her that her Mama had given it to me last Christmas because she thought I needed to look nice when I got up in the morning to write. I’ve worn it every morning since she gave it to me, except when it’s in the laundry, and I love that my morning writing routine came to mind in the shop where she purchased it. Muna liked her Mama’s suggestion that I look nice when I write, and told me, “Well, I don’t drink coffee in the morning, or ever, and I don’t write, except for my name, but I would wear a robe if I had one.” Before I could respond, she added, “Especially if it had dogs on it! Then I would wear it EVERY morning!”

I’ll be going to Costa Rica in October for Muna’s sixth birthday, and there will be a pink robe in my suitcase with dogs and hearts all over it. We will wear our robes together while I drink coffee and she doesn’t. And we will look nice, and Emery would have loved it.

For 257 days, and often without warning, I’ve cried. Sometimes, it hits me with the same fervency as it did at 11:38 am on the morning of January 4th. No one should ever have to relive those feelings of anguish that present themselves, frequently and at unexpected moments…while walking up my stairs to go to bed, or getting into my car after grocery shopping, or on a hiking trail or a neighborhood walk. It usually passes quickly, but leaves a feeling that wants to hang on.

I often return to the memory of telling Emery goodbye, while machines kept her alive in a hospital in Denver, her time on this earth being left in her family’s hands, who told the doctors when to turn the machines off. A tiny part of me thinks there might be a different outcome when I go through that last day in my mind. Much in the same way, I would call my Dad’s phone after he died, thinking maybe, just maybe, he’ll answer. Of course, he never did, but what if he had? Joan Didion called it magical thinking. I call it misplaced hopefulness or not being able to accept reality. But the ending doesn’t change. Miles still gives the doctor a nod, indicating that we’re ready, and she still shuts down the machines. The doctor still gives Emery her final physical exam, and she still pulls out her phone to do what I’ve seen so many times in the movies, yet I still brace myself, knowing what’s next. “Time of death, 11:38 am.” The nurse still writes it down.

The room goes quiet. So quiet I think I can hear every one of our hearts beating, but the one that stopped beating is the one that is the loudest. My heart hovers in the space between where I’m standing and Emery, who is now referred to as a body, is lying. Maybe it’s not sure where it belongs. Maybe it still doesn’t know, 257 days later.

On Memorial Day, 2025, I slipped on wet grass while playing with my grandchildren and broke my ankle.  Three days later, I drove to Sedona for a week of grief therapy.  I shouldn’t have, as it was my right ankle, but I did it anyway.  I was treated at a nearby urgent care, and when the nurse practitioner told me my ankle was broken and I’d need a boot,  I told her I was driving to Sedona in three days.  She looked up at me with raised brows, and before she could say anything, I added, “For therapy.  My daughter recently died… from unexpected complications from the flu…in two and a half days.”

“The flu? Oh my god… I’m so, so sorry.  I hope you’ll find what you need in Sedona. Oh, and take the boot off when you’re driving.” Before leaving the room, she stopped, looked at me again, and in a gentle voice said, “I really am sorry.  Take care.”  I heard that as permission because it was what I needed to hear.  I knew if I cancelled, it would be a long time before the therapists, chosen specifically for me, would have availability.

I knew that driving to Sedona would not be good for my ankle, but I also knew I needed to put my mental health ahead of my physical health.  Two days later, I got in my car and made the two-day trip to Sedona with my boot riding shotgun, until I made a stop, then I’d put it on. Once at the hotel, I took off my boot and replaced it with ice and elevation, making that my hotel routine. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t.

I had ten sessions in five days. I was alone in my therapy, not in a group, and the ten sessions were all different — talk therapy, therapy while seated on a large rock next to a river, breath work, equine therapy, massage therapy, and energy work. Most days, I had two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a break in between for lunch, except for equine therapy, which was a three-hour session, leaving me too exhausted to do anything else afterwards but sleep. All the therapists had been notified about my injury, and Belle, the horse trainer/therapist, had a chair waiting for me when I arrived. The horses, Penny, Mimi, and Salsa, stood close together with their noses pressed against the wall. I asked Belle what they were doing. I’m not a horse person and didn’t grow up around horses, but their positioning looked odd to me. She said they were working. She had told them about me, and they were waiting. I was struck by the two mares, Mimi and Penny, because I often called my daughter, Emery, Mimi, and one of her favorite dolls was named Penny. It felt like she was right next to me, beside my chair, with our eyes on the horses.
I shared stories about Emery with Belle, most of them through tears.  The horses would react by stomping their feet or moving their heads up and down. 

Belle told me they were responding to my stories and were feeling both my emotional pain and the physical pain of my ankle.  Horses read energy and vibrations, and Belle told me they heard me and could understand me in the same way a person who is deaf hears music.  I felt comforted in their presence.  I don’t understand horses or their ability to co-regulate their nervous system to a person in pain, but by the time I left, my ankle no longer hurt, and I felt a deep sense of calm.  When the session was over, I approached Penny to express my thanks.  I felt Emery’s hand on mine, a hand that also had feared horses, as I stroked her neck, feeling calm and drawn to the massive animal I had feared when I arrived.

Digging into the essence of who you are, without edits, is exhausting work, and I had little energy left at the end of the day. I ate dinner as early as I could, mostly to get it over with so I could go to bed. At that hour, I ate in almost empty restaurants with people I used to say were old, but now I’m their age.
On the recommendation of one of my therapists,  I went to the Airport Mesa Grill.  The restaurant is situated on a vortex, a concentration of the Earth’s energy that many believe promotes spiritual growth and healing. Sedona has become famous for its seven vortexes, the Airport Mesa Grill being one of them. The restaurant’s appeal to me was less about the vortex, although I was curious, and more about being able to sit at the bar and watch small planes taxi across the tarmac.  That, to me, was an energy center I could feel because of my flying history with small airplanes. It became my restaurant of choice, and I returned two more times during my week in Sedona, sitting in the same spot at the bar, the one closest to the window.  I didn’t talk, but became an observer instead, while I watched the planes, the people at the bar, and my thoughts.

My week of therapy in Sedona was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, except deciding to file for divorce twenty years ago. When people asked me when I returned home if the therapy had helped or if I felt better, I had to answer no, but I felt different, and for now, different felt like enough.

My therapists were the ones holding the magnifying glass and the flashlight to my grief while I worked my way through to the depths of my soul, digging through the layers that had been buried by life. They were my guides, but I was the one on the journey, and in the end, after excavating parts of myself I didn’t know existed, with apprehension and a pickaxe, I now know where the diamonds are.  I haven’t uncovered one yet, but I know where they are buried.  It is in the grief of losing my daughter that I have found a quiet that I’ve never felt before.  It’s raw and honest, speaking the truth in a voice that shakes and is barely audible, but I can still hear it.  The pain is excruciating, yet pure and strangely comforting.  One of the therapists told me that he was impressed with my bravery and my willingness to step into the fire and spend time with my grief.  His words surprised me. I told him I lived in the fire because it is in the pain where I’ve found the most profound love, and I will crawl through sprays of brambles of sorrow to reach it, if I have to.

I wanted to be able to come home and, when asked if my work in Sedona helped with my grief and loss, say yes, and I feel so much better, but that’s not what happened. I dug deep into my soul at the edge of a river, next to three horses in a stall, on a cushion in a studio where I did breath work, in therapists’ homes, in a clearing in the woods, and Emery was right there with me.  She came to me in my dreams and told me to lean into the strength I had forgotten I had, but she hadn’t. I felt her presence, her guidance, and her strength.

Before I left Sedona, I went into one of the many aura photo studios in town. Emery had a photo of her aura taken at a fundraiser a few months before she died. It was beautiful, so much so that it was on display at her celebration of life. Her face was surrounded by a gradient of violets and blue, fading to white.  The therapists I showed the picture to all responded with amazement at its beauty, adding that the colors indicated she was a very old soul.  I know little to nothing about auras, but I decided I wanted to see what mine was.  Would it be the beautiful violets and blues like Emery’s? Would being the one who gave birth to her ensure I would have some of those pretty colors in my aura?  I chose a nearby Aura Studio, and was escorted to a back room where a woman got me situated with the equipment, and took the photo. A few seconds later, a doorbell rang.  I asked the woman if she needed to answer the door.  She looked confused and told me they didn’t have a doorbell, and she had no idea where the sound came from.  I couldn’t help but think of Emery, but I didn’t say anything.

My aura colors are not violet or blue, and they are not remotely pretty.  My aura is orange—my least favorite color, but also the color that indicates creativity. 

Without giving it much thought, I drove to a second studio, hoping for a different result.  My second aura picture was the same, also orange, which confirmed the legitimacy of the first one. My daughter-in-law, Brooke, later reminded me that aura photography isn’t a situation where one gets to keep having the photo taken until they get the color they want.  I knew she was right, and I also knew that no one would be surprised by what I had done. I wanted to text both photos to Emery, who would echo Brooke’s words and send a laughing emoji in response. I miss that glimmer of connection.

My time in Sedona gave me the tools to a layer of my soul I didn’t know existed. It also reminded me that I was the one holding the map, and always had been. The girl who had lived in Kansas for most of her life was reminded that she held the power all along. It wasn’t as simple as tapping my ruby red slippers together three times to take me home, but it was an understanding of the journey I’m on and will continue to be on for the rest of my life. I’m the one holding the map and sometimes, the pickaxe.

I returned to Boulder and met with an orthopedic surgeon who told me my X-rays were worse than they were three weeks ago. I wasn’t surprised.  He asked me if I had been wearing the boot, without exception, except to sleep, and if I was still not driving. I told him no, I didn’t wear the boot non-stop as it was uncomfortable, and I had driven… “to Sedona, Arizona and home.” I could have told him why my drive to Sedona was so important, but I didn’t. He said the boot was the wrong height and didn’t fit, and wasn’t surprised that I didn’t want to wear it as it was giving me no support. He put me in the taller boot with strict instructions NOT to drive for the next three weeks, at which time he would see me again. Not even to Arizona, he added.  I followed his instructions. 
I had ignored my ankle and listened to my heart instead, as it was the louder voice. I have no regrets. My now bootless ankle is almost healed, and, thankfully, I won’t need surgery. My heart, on the other hand, is not almost healed, nor will it ever be, but I know where the diamonds are, and I’m not afraid of the pickaxe.

Thanking Penny.