Max and attend a support group for parents of dead children that meets by Zoom on certain Monday evenings. We generally look forward to it and are dialing up right on time. Last night we knew about it, and all day had it in our minds to go, but had gotten caught up in the… Continue reading Grief Group
Category: Uncategorized
Sleep Safe
I’ve never had any trouble “springing forward” as we call the shift to Daylight Savings Time and usually Sarah didn’t either. She was a very good sleeper for most of her life except when she was a newborn, which was a very hectic period, to say the least. As I’ve said before, she was a… Continue reading Sleep Safe
Resume
Sarah was very jazzed about starting 10th Grade on August 29th. She was in a high school program that would last until she was 21, and that had some academics but also focused on “life skills” like learning how to commute, how to cook some basic meals, and how to use money. Initially, we had… Continue reading Resume
SUDEP
Cure SPG4 has added Sarah to their website with an “In Memory of” overlay, and with some words we wrote about her. If you make it over to the Foundation’s webpage, scroll down to the bottom to the “We Are SPG4” section and swipe through the kid’s little bios. Sarah is kid number 4, all… Continue reading SUDEP
Warm Love
I found out yesterday that there is (maybe, I’m not exactly a reliable narrator about this stuff) a theory of quantum mechanics (the physics thing) called the Many Worlds Interpretation. If I’m understanding correctly, MWI puts forth that there are an infinite number of universes all existing at the same time. Yes, this means parallel… Continue reading Warm Love
Staging My Grief
I’ve read a lot about the grieving process and the stages of grief. The model developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross back in the 1960’s is still pretty widespread and accepted in griefology and grief counseling. This is the “Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance” rubric that someone pointed out sounds like a Jewish law firm. (It was a line in the… Continue reading Staging My Grief
Memorials
Unfortunately we are limited to 32 total characters by the Parks Foundation for the plaque for Sarah’s memorial park bench, so my planned enscription that she will be remembered in winter, spring, summer, and fall, however poetic, has to be shelved and abbreviated. I can’t even squeeze in one season after her full name and… Continue reading Memorials
Madame Tootsie Bagel
One of my mom’s nicknames for me was Madame Tootsie Bagel, and I started calling Sarah that too, and so did Max. It seemed to suit her combination of cuteness, joy, and a little sass. I always assumed Mom got this name from old radio programs of the 1930s or 40s, or from vaudeville, where… Continue reading Madame Tootsie Bagel
Gumdrop Tree
Yesterday turned into a bit of a weepy sad mess. I started looking at photos of Sarah on my phone, the most recent ones, and thinking ‘This one was 19 days before she died.’ ‘This one was four months and eleven days before she died.’ Did she look as if she was detaching from us?… Continue reading Gumdrop Tree
Dead Children
There’s a new dead child memoir (as I call books written by grieving parents) coming out that I’m looking forward to reading. I read an excerpt in Atlantic Monthly yesterday and really liked how the author (Colin Campbell) seemed to be thinking and talking about grief and the weight of his own thoughts. (The book… Continue reading Dead Children
The First Year Without Sarah 