Month: May 2026

Where would I take you?

Day 14, from my 30 days of grief prompts.

The blue couch… so much joy and so much sadness

Where would I take you? If I could. I didn’t have to think long on this one. The answer felt as if it was waiting for the question to be asked. The Oregon Coast. I would take you to the Oregon Coast, Emery. It would be April, because it is April now, and even though you prefer sunny days to rain, I’m not worried. You are going to love it as much as I do.

After Dad died, and my sister was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, Emery helped me with daily calls and reminders to breathe, promising it would get better. “Put your hand over your heart, Mom, and inhale and slowly exhale. I’m here.” In my journal pages, I found the only entry written from those days.
“I know I’m depressed. I know I should go hike or, at the very least, walk around the block. I don’t ever remember feeling this down.” I felt like I had hit rock bottom, and Emery was helping me find my way out.

I remember during those dark days, Emery telling me she wanted to take me somewhere, anywhere really, because we needed a mother-daughter trip. She mentioned pink champagne and shopping for things we didn’t need. She wanted to mother me, and I wanted to let her. Four months later, Emery died, and what I thought had been my rock bottom would go deeper than I ever could have imagined. I returned to Manzanita, Oregon, a few months after she died, to the same house I had rented the year before, but this time it was vastly different from the previous year. I was deep in grief. My rock bottom became a dark cave with only slivers of light coming in. I don’t remember much about that month, and given the state I was in, I’m not sure how I fed myself or functioned with the day-to-day tasks of being human. I returned to the coast because I wanted to be inspired and held by the ocean while I wrote, walked the beach, cried, and grieved. I responded to writing prompts focused on grief, and in doing so, I’m playing out the fantasy that Emery is still here. At least in my words. We are still planning.

We are sitting on the blue couch, looking out at the ocean from the living room’s large picture windows. We could sit outside on the deck, but it’s chilly this morning, and inside feels cozier. I turned on the fireplace and poured a cup of coffee for each of us. I’m sorry, Emery, I don’t have matcha, as I know that’s what you’d prefer.

The beach is empty except for one man and his dog. He’s out every morning, rain or shine. He and the dog will be back for sunset. I know you’ll be watching the dog more than the man, wondering its name and wishing you were on the beach so you could pet it. The sun is out now, although there will likely be a pop-up rain shower later today. You sigh. I think you love it as much as I do, and I think you’re surprised by that, because, as my sun-loving daughter, you didn’t like rainy days.

You tell me how beautiful it is, the waves crashing up on the beach. We feel so close, even though we are inside. You tell me you’ve always considered yourself a mountain girl, and now you wonder if maybe you’re an ocean girl instead. I tell you, I think you can be both, as I feel the same way. You tell me you understand my love for this magical place. That makes me happy. And now I sigh as I write, because you didn’t see the beach or the small town where I rented the house. You did, however, see Cannon Beach, just north of where I was staying. We went with two other families and spent several days there. You were five. You liked everything at five, except naps, so of course you liked Cannon Beach. I know you‘d remember that vacation, or at least pieces of it, because one of your best friends was also there. We were a group of 14. We didn’t move through the coastal town without a lot of attention and likely exasperated sighs from the waitress at the restaurant we claimed ours for every breakfast and several lunches. So you had been to the Oregon coast, but not where I have landed now, and not as an adult, nor have you ever sat on the blue couch with me while looking out at the ocean. I set those thoughts aside and return to the fantasy I’m writing.

We quietly watch the sea, seated next to each other on the blue couch. The sun comes out, and we bundle up and head down to the beach. You wear one of my jackets, and it’s huge on you, but, like everything else, you wear it well.

We walk across the street to the six steps leading down to the beach. You stop at the bottom step to soak it all in and marvel at the beauty that I’ve talked about so much. We turn right, towards Neahkahnie Mountain, the beach nearly deserted. You ask me if it’s always like this, so few people, and I tell you yes, but then again, it’s April, not a popular time for beach goers. Even a dozen people would feel crowded to me. I’ve been spoiled. I’ve gotten used to the solitude of this beach in April.

We find a large piece of driftwood and take a seat. I point down the beach to the tide pools, and tell you it is where Thomas and his girls walk from the house they rent to look for starfish. You tell me you want to go there later and look for yourself. She’s making plans. She loves it.

You tell me it is the perfect place for a writer, and I agree. You asked me to show you the spot on the beach where I saw the lineup of people and the girl in the yellow raincoat holding the box, which I believed contained ashes. I pointed it out to you, and you told me you thought the story I wrote was one of your favorites. I didn’t know when I wrote it that less than nine months later, you would factor into another essay inspired by the girl in the yellow raincoat with the box of ashes, but the actors would be different. It would be your family. A mother, a father, two brothers, a husband, and two children.; all trying to make sense of something that doesn’t. All grieving your death. But now, you’re with me, while I experience the gift of having you, in a fleeting moment of creativity that I have formed with my words.

As we walk back to my rental house, you stoop down to pick up a heart-shaped rock and start to put it in your pocket, but then hesitate and set it back down on the sand. Why didn’t you take it, I ask? You know, for a little souvenir? You tell me that you don’t need to take the rock because you have the memory of finding it while walking on the beach with me, and that’s enough. Of course, that’s what you say because that’s who you are. I remembered being with you once and you finding something on a sidewalk. Was it a penny? Probably. You decided not to pick it up, but instead, wanted to leave it for someone else to find. I think about that now when I see a coin on the sidewalk or the floor, but I pick it up, because now, I see it as a gift from you, intended for me.

It starts to rain, so we return to the house and our place on the blue couch. You lean into me and put your head on my shoulder, your eyes fixed on the beauty of the ocean through the filter of light rain. I can see why you love it, Mom. I’m so happy you’ve found this piece of heaven.

That is where I would have gone. That is where I would have taken you.

I shift out of my fantasy and back into my reality. I have a deep longing for something I have never experienced. A longing for the endless possibilities I thought lay in front of us.

Mother’s Day, Again. 2026

Mother’s Day, 1992

Santa Barbara, March, 2023

Mother’s Day. My second without Emery. The essays of memories of Pop-Tarts and a half-filled glass of juice, being carried by three young children on makeshift trays to my bed, feel like a lifetime ago. My words have changed. I have changed. The holiday has become a reminder of what I have lost, what I long for, and what I’ll never have again. Memories of sticky hands and excited children pushing their way to my bedside to be the first to wish me a happy Mother’s Day have been set aside. For now. Maybe forever. I don’t know.

When Emery died, Thomas and Grant not only lost their sister, but they also lost a big part of their mom. That breaks my heart for them and for me. I wasn’t able to save my daughter, and I wasn’t able to support my sons when they needed me the most. Instead, our roles reversed, and my sons were the ones who held me up, comforted me, and took care of me. I became their mother who needed mothering, and they stepped into the role with love and grace.

Sunday, May 3rd, was International Bereaved Mothers’ Day, a day dedicated to Mothers who carry the profound loss of a child. I didn’t know there was such a day, but my social media page told me, since they’re filled with grief due to my changed algorithm. A day to recognize bereaved mothers gives me both comfort in its existence and heartbreak that there are mothers who find themselves a part of the group being acknowledged. Myself, sadly included. I did not acknowledge the holiday, nor did I share it with anyone, and I did not do anything I don’t do every day, holiday or not. Remember. Cry. Grieve. I also learned, ironically on Bereaved Mother’s Day, that the word, viloma, is a Sanskrit term meaning against the natural order. It is also a word used to describe a parent whose child has died.


Against the natural order…words that hold their weight.

On the heels of Mother’s Day, my mind goes to my last Mother’s Day with Emery in 2024, when we spent the day planting flowers in the newly tilled gardens in her front yard. Her preference was a wild, tangled, over-planted garden, like an English garden, and mine was a more orderly one with plenty of room for each plant to eventually grow into its space, like a French garden. Her family no longer lives in that house, having moved to Costa Rica last August, and the house will soon be sold. A different family will live there someday, and I hope they will wander the gardens with appreciation for the flowers Emery and I so lovingly planted. I wonder if they will think about the people who planted them. The plantings will be in the third year of their growth cycle, the “leap” year, and will show that one area was planted too close together and will need to be thinned, and the other, just right. Will they notice that? I wonder if they like iris? Especially the purple bearded ones. I hope so. Not being able to walk through the gardens in memory when the house is sold will be another ending – the loss of a space that has given me comfort and offers a closeness to Emery amongst the flowers. I’ve gone over to that house multiple times since Emery died to find comfort. To find Emery, who should be walking out to my car with Arlo and Muna tagging behind. Like every other time, no one meets my car. Wanda, my grief, sits shotgun, while I wait, even though I know that no one will come out of the house.

Mother’s Day feels less about my role as a mother this year and more about the children I mothered. I am the mother of three children, two of them living. Those are still difficult words to say. Often, when making small talk with someone I will never see again, I say “three” when asked about my children. Three, without qualifiers. It’s easier and spares the questioner a difficult story.

Over the past 16 months, I’ve been mothered by my two sons and two daughters-in-law far more than I’ve mothered them. All four have comforted me, listened to me, and cried with me. They were by my side continually in the early days, not wanting to leave me alone, and even though they are on the West Coast and I’m in Colorado, they are still by my side emotionally.

Several weeks after Emery’s death, I sent Thomas and Grant a book with daily affirmations related to grief. A friend sent me the book after Emery died, and it continues to give me comfort. When I took the books into the Pak Mail, the lights began to flutter, although the TV behind the counter remained on. This continued until the books were packaged and put into the bin for mailing. The woman behind the counter told me she had never seen anything like that before and had no idea what was going on. I didn’t tell her, but I knew. Once I was out of the office, I quietly thanked Emery and told her, Yes, I will take care of your brothers, and they are taking care of me.

From the letter I included with the books:

Dear Thomas and Grant,

In all my profound grief of losing Emery, I’ve not forgotten that you also lost your sister, and that hurts my heart deeply. We will forever be on this path, laid with stones of grief, trying to find our way. Some days, we will proceed with familiarity and ease, while others will feel more like traversing an icy path with steep precipices and limited visibility. We didn’t choose this path; we’ve been forced to navigate with tired bodies and broken hearts, yet there are no two souls in the world I’d rather be traveling with than you two. You are my strength, my comfort, and my light in what feels like a very dark cave I’m living in now. I hope that someday, the pain will become more familiar and maybe more comfortable, not because we have become used to its presence but because the edges of sadness will be softened by memories, photos, music, words, and a spiral of sunflowers with their oversized heads looking towards the sun, because Emery loved sunflowers. We can no longer experience her in the physical realm, so we will continue searching for her in the things she loved.

Thomas and Grant, you are my north star. That north star led us to the rental house we shared for 3 weeks after Emery died, where our non-Jewish family sat shiva for 21 days. We were together, and together became our home.

As your mom, I vividly remember two little boys who greeted me at the door, anxious to welcome their new baby sister, and your excitement when Thomas asked me if Emery could stay with us forever, and I said yes. Our forever just wasn’t long enough. As your mom, who could fix most hurts when you were young, I wasn’t able to make it better this time, because there is no better when the worst thing we could have imagined happened, and in the span of four very short and very long days.

Thank you for taking care of me. For listening to me, crying with me, sitting with me, and helping me to a couch where I curled into the fetal position after we heard that Emery’s brain was no longer functioning. You were there for me during the most difficult days of my life, a touchstone in my memories that I continually lean into for comfort. A hole was ripped into the weave of our family on January 4th, 2025, that changed the very essence of who we are today and who we are becoming. As horrific as it was to experience such a profound loss, it has become our teacher as we learn to go more slowly, be softer, and always lead with kindness. We learned that grief is the shadow that follows quietly behind love, and one never exists without the other.

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently wrote, and the words I quoted so often as we waited with hope and prayers in the hospital waiting room, “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.”

It feels like this Mother’s Day, our second without Emery, belongs to you, Thomas and Grant, for mothering your mother when she couldn’t do it herself. Thank you, again and again, for holding my hand while we navigate this capricious path with hearts that are both full and broken. As your mom, who would do anything to spare you from pain, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you this time.

I love you dearly. Forever and for always, and I’m honored to be the one you call Mom.