Long before mom died, or grandmas, or grandpas, or any of the friends I’ve lost, I’ve always thought of grief as a sort of apex – an event most profoundly affecting people closest to the centre, with complicated concentric circles radiating out, that include a vast network of connections, all tangled up. A discovery of closeness that you didn’t know existed, and a realization about how far away life can take you. This is the closest I’ve personally been to…
Reflections on the life of Marilyne Brennan It’s hard to know how to summarize a life like mom’s. I spent the last several days gathering perspectives, listening to stories, sifting through them, feeling like each is just a chapter of a book that she wrote with each of us; each one with a multitude of chapters that we still get the chance to read, or re-read, through the telling. Mom was a thrift store jumble of wild adventures, endless curiosity, boundless…
Somehow I stumbled across this eulogy for my grandfather in my email drafts tonight, and I find myself regretting that I didn’t find a larger audience for it a while back, so I feel like I should share it. The week my grandfather died, I was heading to Europe for the first time in ten years. I chose to continue with my plans, instead of going home for his funeral. Because he was already gone. Because I think it’s what…
I’m Home. I’m Home because my mom is beginning to die. I’m home for 12 days and two are over and all we did is eat and sleep, and smoke and talk. And 2 out of 12 days are gone already. And maybe that’s all that’s left. My mom already died once, or maybe more times than that. Taken by peculiarity and random, inexplicable choices; that left me, and us all, reeling in chaos; questioning our own grasp on reality…