The final destination: Myself — Six hundred thirty-one days ago, my husband passed unexpectedly. No good-byes. No warning. Just gone. Unshockable heart rhythm is what they said. He stopped talking mid-sentence as our son’s passenger in a car on the interstate. My readers might find comfort, inspiration, or kinship with someone else who knows what…

Vance Joy’s “Missing Piece” got me. Read my mind. Spoke to me from beyond the grave, replaced our first song, made me cry, and remember everything about you once again. It described the magic of our lives, the glue that held us together, the things we didn’t realize were so…

But it no longer exists — They say it comes in waves. They say it will get better. They say it takes a year. I say, “screw what they say! I just want to go home.” Then I wipe the tears away. First I stayed strong because we had to walk out of the hospital. Then…

Gratitude changes your life — Breakfast was over. I was sitting at my home office laptop. My delicious, crispy, buttery, strawberry jam-topped Thomas’ English Muffin filled my belly. Cleanliness being next to godliness, I scraped the little farina balls from the outside of the muffin onto my paper plate. …

There’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about what it means to be trans — Someone in your family shares with you their preferred pronouns and the new name they have chosen and ask you to think of them by their new-to-you gender identity. What do you do? I thought it was simple. Honor their request. Apparently, it’s not so simple. And I am shocked. …

As I bridge the day — Saturday and the date of the fifth — that only became important in June when my husband Mike enjoyed his favorite pastime, then never came back to me, to us, the tears still come. Late Friday, I spoke to one son on the phone…

Love came in a garbage bag. — I was a single parent working two jobs. I was barely making it paycheck to paycheck. My son was 3. He and I would go to bed at the same time (7 PM), and I would get up at 10:15 PM to work my 11 PM to 7 AM shift…

Stories from a sport card autograph collector’s wife — I was feeling a little disorganized in my apartment. Disorganization clouds the brain so I picked up a shopping bag intending to put it with the rest of the stack and found something inside. Reaching in, I pulled out a Sharpie. I held it tight to me knowing it was…

How a pendulum helped me find my glasses — Fall in Vermont is beautiful. Every day this week after work I used the last two hours of the day to explore areas I expected to be very colorful. Friday afternoon I made my way up to the base of Mount Mansfield on one of the back dirt roads. …