-
Farewell Hope The Guinea Pig – Losing a Pet
I know I am not supposed to have favourites but this little critter was my fave of all the guinea pigs. Hope was just a tiny little thing when we brought her home from the pet store. She was Payton’s guinea pig. She sadly passed away on Easter weekend. It was a really sudden event. Farewell Hope Losing someone or something you love is never easy. Losing a pet can be super sad for kids. My daughter was heartbroken. For those of you who remember we have had a slew of guinea pigs here at our house. The kids each wanted one way back when and so we got two…
-
Five Things NOT to Say When a Friend is Grieving
GRIEVING Four months ago my mother passed away unexpectedly fast. Hearts broken, we moved through our days barely breathing at times, bursting into tears at the cemetery as we chose our mother’s plot, falling asleep spent. The words “Beloved Mother” on a spray of roses and every childhood memory unravelled at my feet. Sobbing, we set foot inside a flower shop to buy the last flowers we might ever gift her with and hope the florist weighs how much we loved her, translates it into colours. In the last few weeks, tears have come and gone, sometimes with clear triggers visible like signposts, and other times dropping from the clear…
-
Losing a Parent: Every Day is a Gift, Just Not Tomorrow
Every day is a gift. But today I would gladly trade tomorrow in if I could. June 5th marks a month since my Mom passed away. I can barely type that without crying. One month of sadness and anger and frustration and forgetting and movement and tears and heaviness and guilt and devastation, and heart-stopping pain. One month ago I had no idea grief felt like a stone in your chest weighing you down with sad. This weekend, I attended TBEX, travel blogging conference, and it was the first time I really felt like I had smiled and kicked back since my mother passed away and for a few moments…
-
What You Miss Most When A Loved One Dies
After a loved one dies the things you miss surprise you. Small sucker punches all day long to the heart. They creep in the week after the funeral and you think I had no idea I would miss that. Sensory Things After a Loved One Dies Of course you miss her smell, and it is visceral, the way you seek it, find it lingering on her shirt, a blouse, a blanket, even on a pair of sunglasses. That was my Mom. That was how she smelled and I never really noticed it until right this second. And your heart hurts thinking what happens when the scent…
-
But I Am Not Done with You Yet
In the end, you think about the many times she danced through the living room holding the cat, with those tiny cat antlers it used to hate. The times she dressed at the vanity in her room draping jewelry on and your eight-year-old eyes thought it was magic. You dreamed she was beautiful and then wished years away so you could grow fast forward. You asked her to twirl. She did and spun you around. She held your hand and said I love you and then she gave you a kiss before heading off to the dance with a friend. The grief fills you with an overwhelming sad stone in…