2024

I wrote many things in 2024 but didn't publish a single one. It was a very private year for my grief, Owen, and me. But now, here in the early months of 2025 I feel called to share my writings. Many are just musings, some are poems. So here is a collection in chronological order, and completely unedited, of my writings from an entire year.

12/25/23

When Owen died, I went looking for stories of people who had lived this kind of loss. I went looking for stories of people living in pain so huge it obliterated everything else. I needed those stories. An example to live into. What I found were stories of how to get out of pain. How to fix it. How to transform grief as soon as possible. I read over and over that there was something wrong with me for being so upset.

It wasn’t just the books that told me that. The people in my life, close friends, the wider community, and the therapists—they all wanted me to be OK. They needed me to be OK because pain like mine, like yours, is incredibly hard to witness. Our stories are very hard to hear.

If we truly want to be helpful to people in pain, we need to be willing to reject the dominant story of pain as an aberrant condition in need of transformation or redemption. We need to stop trotting out the stages of grief that were never meant to become universal scripts.

In telling better stories, we weave a culture that knows how to bear witness, to simply show up and be present to that which can never be transformed. In telling better stories, we learn to be better companions, to ourselves, and to each other.

I was there from my son’s entire lifetime from his conception to his death. That his life was expedited in this way still befuddles me.  It feels unnatural.  

And yet, it is still a life.  It is still a journey with a beginning a messy middle, and an end.  Short.  Desperately, devastatingly short. 

Grief doesn’t lessen. But it loosens. Loosens its vice grip on my throat and its chains on my heart. 

1/31/24

Grief and I are in a strange relationship.  At times she is violent; pummeling me from the moment i open my eyes until i finally give in and say “okay, it’s my fault!”  She gaslights me too.  Did that really happen that way?  Look at the pictures again.  Was it really even you that it happened to?  Are you sure? She teases me, making me think she is softening only to come back and remind me “don’t be too happy, you’re the mother of the dead baby, remember?”. She is in cahoots with the universe too; both making promises they can’t keep, shifting blame, and playing the “we’re not touching you” game, always inches from me but not making contact.  

They know that it’s so much easier to accept guilt and blame than the alternative though.  The alternative is that none of it is within my control at all.  

To be honest, the day he died wasn’t the worst day.  It was terrifying, scary, and mind numbingly painful and yet it wasn’t the worst day.  

The truth is there is no worst day.  

2/7/24

My trauma is a narcissist. Characteristics of narcissism include gaslighting, seeking power or control, interpersonal personal sabotage, manipulation, inability to accept blame. There are, of course, psychological links between trauma and narcissism, but that’s not what I’m saying. Saying my trauma, exists, and Has a life of its own and an identity of its own. And that identity is narcissistic. Here’s what I mean… First of all my trauma gaslight me all the time. The further out I get from my trauma, the more unsure I am if I’m remembering it right. The more uncertain I am, if that really Happened. For me, my trauma was the birth of my second son. Well, that’s not the whole story. The birth, the hospitalization, and the death is more like it. So for me, I don’t have proof that I ever experience trauma. I should have a toddler, but I don’t. No one knows I gave birth just over two years ago, much less that it was traumatic. My trauma interferes with my interpersonal relationships. It doesn’t like when I connect with others, and it reminds me because feelings of anxiety or panic or guilt, or sometimes just overwhelming fatigue, will be cast upon me as reparations for trying to have a good day.

My trauma also doesn’t like to take the blame for any of my current problems. I know this, because even though my trauma is the problem, it keeps telling me to be grateful, to look on the bright side, to find the silver lining. 

4/2/24

"The grief spoon"

Stirring the tea, each clang against the walls of the tea cup ringing in my ears.

Mixing the hot, cold, sweet, and bland.  The  flavors of this grief. 

She ladles out pleasantries until my bowl overflows and I dump what is left onto the floor.  I’m hallowed out; scooped from the inside.  Here, try some.

Every swallow is a dose reality; my sadness elixir.  Just a spoonful.

In the drawer with the other spoons; mundane and plain. Unassuming and humbled until its her turn again.

With a clang she hits the floor, wash, rinse, repeat.  Do over.  

Swirling the food; there is no nourishment here.  She taps. Taps. Taps.  

This tool separates textures and tastes.  An instrument of choice but a reminder that I have none.

5/2/24

i have been longing for a way to connect with owen.  for a way to continue mothering him.  i have felt stuck with all this mothering energy and no where to put it.  i want to know owen but i cant sense who whe would be or what he would be like.  i cant sense him and that has been so hard for me because it feels disconnected.  

the idea for these retreats and the name of it and the logo…it’s all coming together and it feels like him.  it feels like where the energy can go.  it feels like his essence.  it feels like the chance to watch him grow and blossom through watching this idea grow.  

5/22/24

thank you.

i will let it come like a wave. like a contraction.  if it hurts i wont run.  i will let it move. i will let it take me.  i will embrace and surrender.  i am opening.  i am i am i am i am 

i am awake

i am ready

i a a vessel

tank you for letting me be a vessel thank you for letting me be a vessel thank you for letting me hold it all.  thank you for all of it.

i will use the pain and the past and the pain and the broken parts.  i will use it i will tend it and let it push outward.  i will not deny myself, my true self any more. i will not deny that i have these gifts and that they need to be in the world.

i will allow death and birth and death and birth and dath and birth as many times as it needs ot happen.  

thank you. thank you thank you.

i will feel it. i will not push it away any more i will remember. i will surrender.  i will remember i will surrender.  i will remember. i will surrender.  i will i will i will.

ok okokokokokokoikokokokokokokokokokokokokok. ok. 

5/24/24

Women come to retreats seeking connection, shared understanding, and transformation of some sort.  But how does it happen? 

The magic is in the creation of a space that fosters these things.  The power of the retreat lies in the connections made and the container that is built. 

By prioritizing activities that encourage bonding and mutual support, retreats create a powerful and lasting impact.Activities like group circles, hands on experiences, and shared meals can be more transformative than any formal coaching session.

Retreats are different than workshops or conferences because the agenda isn’t mine…it’s yours.  I am keenly aware that while I provide the framework and LLL lay the foundations for the experience, it is actually you that brings the magic…you bring the questions, the longings, the curiosity and these are in fact the only thing you need to have to be a retreat person!

There are times in our lives when our heart nudges us towards an unknown path.  maybe it will ask you trust in something that you cant see, with no promises or guarantees.  maybe something no one can understand but you.  There will be a moment you’ll have to choose between familiar and unknown. and your heart will ask you to have faith in your own inner wisdom.  

And even if it feels uncomfortable, we are reminded of the teachings of Rumi:  “as you start to walk on the way, the way appears…”

This is an invitation.  Not just an invitation to sign up and come to a retreat…but an invitation to say yes.  An invitation to be curios and see what could happen if you do.  

I am not a life coach. i am not a healer. i am not a certified retreat leader.  but i am someone who is healing and i now that my purpose is not the thing i do but the thing that happens in others when i do what i do. 

5/26/24

I wanted to see a lion

Saw one within 5 minutes

I asked I wonder if I could see another 

Saw one less than 10 minutes later.

I asked I wonder if I can see his name or a 36

Saw a gas station named Owens within 15 minutes 

Upon arrival to our b&b passed a building with a giant 36 on it 

5/31/24

Ways to know you

I open my spirit to know you.  I know you in all the ways

I know you in the smell of rain and the taste of salty tears.

i know you in the pink skies and the fresh blooms.

I witness myself

I nurture 

I expand. 

In the wintering too.  

In know you in the lions and the whispers that say “build it, create it…it is me.”

I know you in the heaviness, when I am broken and weak.

I know you in the rise, for it is you that gives me the strength.

To stand once more. 

6/24/24

How it changes

I have more good memories of him in death. More good memories of pink skies and lions and whispers and signs. 

Grief changes because you start feeling the weight of what you have more than what you lost. Trauma. Pain. PTSD. Things you can’t unsee. Can’t unknow. 

In his death 

I connect to him now

More

Safer

Not as sad 

6/28/24

owen taught me about width.  i used to function in a linear way; as we all do for the most part.  What’s. next, where to, complete this, check this off the list…always bound by time and always focused on  the bidirectional plane; forward and back.  we learned that back is bad though…don’t look back, leave the past alone, don’t rehash, move on, move up, move forward.

but he taught me about width.

6/28/24

When I told our story,

I felt only pain

sorrow

anger.

I felt only heartbreak

confusion

lost.

But then I heard a voice within,

whispering,

“our story is not over…

for you have not seen the ending.

You have not yet seen 

all that will be made possible.

You have not yet seen

the full width and depth of my life.”

But it will not be possible to see

should you remain fixated

on what has happened

rather than what is still unfolding.

It will not be possible to see

unless you learn to see

a new way.

So when you tell our story,

remember that it is still moving

expanding,

it is grief alchemized and love realized.

6/30/24

We each have the ability to face the depths of our own suffering, to becoming devoted caretakers for our own wounds, and to follow our ache home to its source to remember who we really are.

7/1/24

I experienced birth trauma in 2021 in Homburg Germany. My partner was denied entry to the hospital and I was left completely alone with no support for over 4 hours during intense contractions. I didn’t speak the language. I then had an episiotomy against my knowledge, had my placenta forcefully pulled from my body resulting in a postpartum hemorrhage, requiring surgery. 

Informed consent would have meant that I would have gotten to have skin to skin with my baby after birth and not have been separated from him for the first 12 hours of his life. He died when he was 36 days old after complications from open heart surgery, and I will never get that time back. I will also always carry the trauma of the birth which compounds the grief of my baby’s death.

7/17/24

Double Life

Take it over two years for me to begin to separate Owen from what happened to Owen. Owen from Owen story. Owen from Owens birth, and Owen’s death.

And I wonder if this is why I have struggled so much with the concept of gratitude. Here’s what I mean, I have met bereaved mothers who feel that they are grateful for the time they did get with their baby, that they are grateful that they got to know or hold or be with their child at all. And I have been rejecting that , with every fiber of my being, because I’m not grateful. I haven’t been able to think about as separate from everything that happened. So when I think about him and how much I love him, I can’t extrapolate that from his traumatic birth, the guilt I carry about his, medically complex life on earth, his death… It’s been impossible to find gratitude in anything. To be honest, I’ve let go of gratitude as even being the goal, and that has helped. I’ve learned that gratitude is not the antidote to grief, anyway, so if some sense of gratitude comes, it doesn’t mean I will grieve less. I think this has made it less important for me to try to achieve it.

Owen lived for 36 days. Everything about his life and death has been a source of meaning making. If there’s a sign that can be a scribe to some thing that I see, or hear, or experience… It’s not difficult for me to do this.after all, I’m looking for him everywhere. But I have also gotten less desperate for those signs. less panicked if I don’t see them. And when I do see them, I don’t feel this intense need to hold onto it, although I still take pictures of things I see, and get new tattoo inspirations on the regular. So I guess you could say I’m still collecting these signs, or mementos of them. over the last 10 months or so I have been able to come into more communion with Owen and to feel like I actually have a relationship with him. The way that signs present themselves now in my life feels different.

today I learned that the number 36 means “ double life“ in Hebrew. Of course it does.

Here is the funny thing—if you’d said “double life” to me two years ago it would’ve meant something totally different. Because i was living one. The mask I wore to seem okay and the real, broken, raw shell i was behind it… I lived this double life for a solid year, maybe even longer. 

9/24/24

After you died, I rushed towards healing, as if Grief was a smell that I needed to wash off immediately. I grasped for anything to move me anywhere, anywhere away from where I was.

But the choice was get real or stay small. Really that sounds way more fluffy than what it really was… Which felt much more like there’s this giant boulder on top of your legs and you can either lay there and die or you’re gonna have to break your own legs.

Once I was willing to make the break, a thread of clarity began to shimmer in otherwise completely dark, dense fog. The answers did not all come at once, but as I began to pull one thread, like a loose thread on your favorite sweater, the whole thing began to unravel. I saw codependency, I saw shame, I saw patterns of intermittent reinforcement that kept me stuck in a cycle. A cycle of trying to be the version that will keep me the most safe, get me the most love, and be the most accepted. I wore These masks and thought they were my true self. Took pride in the identity of the peacekeeper, the problem, solver, the good listener. But as a painful realization hit that I knew her better than she knew either of us, it became clear that this unraveling was coming at some point. At first, the unraveling felt like everything else… Just another layer on the shit cake of my life. Just one more thing to grieve. One more thing to deal with. But the break, and the subsequent unraveling, although a death in its own right, has led to the birth of something entirely new. The birth of my sovereign, full spectrum self. And well still in her infancy, or perhaps, at the time of this writing, her toddlerhood, her legs are healed, and she is knitting a new sweater. all the colors are in this one. They’re all integrated. Threads from all of the lessons, a cycle art deco inspired peace woven into the various tapestry of who I am. 

When your child dies, there’s a natural thing that happens and it is described beautifully by what’s called the continuing bond theory. This theory says that it is natural and normal and healthy, even to continue the connection and bond with your dead child. but it requires redefining your relationship, your role, and your mothering. Part of mothering him is mothering me. Holding little me hand as she weeps for him and for us. It’s a tall order to build a castle out of the wreckage left from the death of a child. To build anything. it is something that only the fullest, most embodied, sovereign, full spectrum version of myself could do. And I only became her when I allowed rupture, when I released so that the unraveling could occur. 

12/7/24

you die every year on the last day

and then a new year begins

it doesn't stop the grieving

it just means it’s been another year

between your last breath and me

between the moment your heart stopped

and mine stubbornly kept beating.