Category: Uncategorized
-
#DanceLikeEthan
April is a rough month for me. Then comes May. There’s Mother’s Day, a day when I miss my own mother and the son who made me a mom for the first time. At the end of the month is Ethan’s birthday. This year he would turn 31 on the 31st. Kind of a cool…
-
A Bed of Flowers in County Mayo
I flew across the Atlantic Ocean with a small pillbox in my bag. I was bringing a bit of my mother and Ethan to rest in Irish soil. My mom was so proud of her Irish heritage, and Ethan was going to carry on the McDonnell name if he had lived long enough to have…
-
Force and Motion
Newton’s laws refer to motion. To physics. Subjects I know little about. Grief, however, I know something about. My grief, anyway. Everyone’s experience is different. But I think most people agree that while grief changes, it never truly gets easier. Especially not when holidays, anniversaries, or milestones come around. This is my third holiday season…
-
Fall Semester
I know most of the world doesn’t divide time into semesters, but most of my adult life has been spent as a college student or college instructor, so semesters make more sense to me than months or seasons. This semester, I was fully immersed in college life, which is why I haven’t written a blog…
-
The Broken Places
I love Ernest Hemingway, but I think he got it wrong. In his novel A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” It’s a nice idea to think that after heartbreak or trauma, the fractured psyche heals to a stronger state than it was…
-
Four Things I Learned from My Mother
I lost my mom one year ago today. She died just a year after Ethan and two years after my dad. I feel like I was thrown into the deep end of the grieving pool and I’ve been treading water ever since. Losing my parents has certainly been a different experience than losing a child,…
-
Who Has Two Thumbs, an AARP Membership, and is Going Back to School?
This old lady! My mom often said to me: “You never do things the easy way, Maria.” She was right. Sometimes I wonder why I seem to put myself on a steep, rocky path when there may have been a nice paved road that leads to the same place. I’ll wonder about that another time,…
-
The Full Moon and the Afterlife
I don’t know what you believe—about souls, an afterlife, eternity… Honestly, I don’t even know what I believe. So, instead, I’ll tell you what I know. I know that light is one of the first words I think of when I think of Ethan. Despite the fears and anxiety that often shadowed his eyes, he…
-
Ethan’s Birthday
I haven’t posted here in a while. I have all sorts of ideas for blog posts, but I’ve been in sort of a processing phase, not a sharing phase. April and May are a mine field of sad anniversaries and triggers for me. I tend to pull into myself and go into autopilot at times…
-
What My Father Taught Me about Love, Fear and Parrots
It’s been 3 years since my father died. In memory of Ricky, this essay that tumbled out of me just days after that loss. Last week I watched my father die. Alone with him in a dim room in a nursing home, I whispered a few words that ended with “you can let go.” And…
Just Love Harder 