My grief work and journey to erase the pain of Donna's death began within an hour of her death. I called a dear friend to tell him of her passing. He said, "I don't know a lot about grief. What I do know is that to deny it or hide from it will only make it worse".
Read moreSupply and Demand of Connection and Humanity
We are buoys for each other
My on loop phrase is "Connection is at the heart of our humanity". I thought I'd speak to though a character in a play I've been penning for some time now, "Silent Whispers".
A character speaking to connection and humanity skips the TL:DR yapping. It's the voice of a human that imbues greater understanding because we hear in real time. We connect.
The following is a short excerpt from the play. The Character John is a 67 year old Crisis Responder. A widower for ten years at an emotional cross roads in his grief journey. His shared grief narrative is no longer a true projection of his being. It is the hoarfrost covering truths he needs to survive.
The Excerpt
John: In my heart of hearts, I want to show when we connect with another, we become more human. It’s about our shared experiences riding the struggle bus. Stuck in a moment we don’t want to be in. We step on the bus, pay our emotional fare, and take a seat, waiting, hoping to exit the bus. During that ride, we share, learn, and grow.
In 2024, there were over 6 million calls or texts made by those on the struggle bus.
John takes a long pause, letting that number sink in.
Those 6 million riders sound like this:
Each of these lines is projected one at a time.
I need help. My mother slammed my head into the wall.
I can’t stop cutting. I don’t know what to do. Help me.
My dad raped me when I was 14. I can’t go on. I want to die.
John: Those are the extreme moments. The bleakest. Not the majority.
I have no friends. I’m depressed.
My boyfriend is being mean to me.
I’m being evicted. I’m scared.
I can’t breathe. My panic attack is not stopping. I want to come out to my parents. Can you help me?
You’ve seen this bleakness on screens. On socials. You’ve witnessed this never-ending trauma with those around you. Drains us. Ruins us.
For a moment, consider all of these struggles are sitting right next to you right now, unseen, unheard.
We can become numb to others and ourselves. Numb is not fate. I’d like to believe what you heard here are not the screams of others but how the soft voices of connection can repair and heal. To reignite our humanity. A two-way journey. Help be helped. Listen be heard. Support be supported.
John opens his arms wide.
When we connect to others, we hear soft footsteps in the periphery of our minds and hearts. Those footsteps are our better angels, bringing awareness into focus. Ours and those we’re connecting with. Those footsteps can be memories that inspire, embrace, love us.
Or they are moments of peace where knowledge opens. In those moments of silence during connection, we feel alive. We feel present for them and us. Not alone. We are not alone. For me, it is the magical realism of connection that changes my consciousness.
You now have permission to go forth and connect.
‘attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.’*
Pen to paper is the deliberate act of writing she says "the ritual is the remedy." It puts us square into the present tense. The here and now. The goal for life.
Read moreWould You Speak with a Griefbot?
I’ve been widowed since 2011. I’m a pretty active sharer of my grief and my grief journey. My writing falls into grief and loss mostly. I actively support those struggling with the loss of a loved one. My memoir, “Donna, A Photo Memoir of Love and Loss” ends with: “Donna, are you waiting for me?” I will confess that I do call out Donna’s name when I’m home or riding the bike. So my bona fides surrounding griefbots, my loss, and Donna put my curiosity on laser blast.
Read moreOur September 11, 2001
In 1988, Donna and I moved to Tribeca from Soho. The Towers of the World Trade Center were the lighthouses steering us to Tribeca. Never an architectural marvel or a calling of world business. For us, the towers were placeholders in our new sparsely populated artistic neighborhood. From our bedroom, we could see the North Tower office lights flickering through clouds. The Twin Towers pinned our home and lives. The Twin Towers said: “You’re safe. You’re home.”
Read moreAlice, Lewis Carroll , and Grief
'Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll's children's novel about a girl who enters a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures where all logic is not logical. Carroll's subsequent book 'Alice Through the Looking-Glass’ has Alice enter another fantasy world by climbing through a mirror where everything is in reverse.
These two books capture, in a fantastical way, life before Donna died (BDD) and after Donna died (ADD). 'Alice in Wonderland' reflects our life and marriage.
Read moreTouching Grass II
Continuing my previous post Touching Grass where I referenced a play I am working on and how that exercise afforded me the chance to discover what I am failing to see within me. I wanted to share a short excerpt from a scene.
Read moreTouching Grass
Self-Discovery Is an Analog Exercise
These facts became a Venn diagram of my life. The space where they intersected became a question mark. What does any of this mean? I need to sit still as snow to allow my mind to open up to what is hidden in the corners. Listen to what my heart is saying. Not let manufactured cognition mask my truth.
Read moreIt's August...Sigh
Every year since 2011, August does that. Every August, I react in my solitude. Every August, I share a memory and wait 12 months more. You know: lather, rinse, repeat.
Read moreHear What You Write
In my text-based crisis counseling, I frequently share how, when those texting in share their words, those words become a neon sign blazing before them—so they can see themselves better, and I can see them better. It seems that “cute” call-out to share has a real basis in the history of reading and writing.
Read moreRandom Acts of Memory
In the end. Or at least today, in my grief, I discovered the depth of compassion and love that resides within me. The wound of grief allowed light to enter and illuminate that.
Read moreMemoir Relaunch
I'd like to believe if you read this memoir it becomes a conversation with me about our shared experiences with love and loss. It is a connection that reinforces our humanity. Bring your memories. Bring your hope. Sharing our memories is part of our grief work. It is the common bond we share to navigate our loss.
Read moreMicro-Moments Blossom into Deeply Meaningful Connections
There are tiny micro-moments that occur randomly—just a moment, unnoticed. Then it slowly blossoms, revealing itself to be rich in color, bold in its beauty, filling all our senses.
Read moreMicro-Dosing Our Humanity
Hey—I’m not asking y’all to go all up in the connection grill of randos. Just a small recognition of another person. A hey, how ya doing? A nod to the guy hauling bags of trash out from a building. All of these little things can fill us with humanity. Fills others with humanity.
Read moreA Tailor As Metaphor for Life
The tailor is a metaphor for how connection is at the heart of our humanity. They look at us, see us in the clearest way. They bring their knowledge, history, experience, and ability to see us for who we are. Their vision and connection to us add to our being, spark our growth, actualize who we are through how we appear to the world. We trust them. And that there is what adds to our lives as we move forward in life.
Read moreSix Months
Ice Cream Smile
Love travels though us into the universe.
Even though I was the docent for her death, walking with her on this journey to the end of her time, she held her fears tightly. Her lips never spoke the vulgar language of death. We both shared those words inside us together and alone. Still, we would always find our way back to the past. Watching The Sons Of Anarchy. She would put a finger to her lips, shush, "Not a word out of you. This is my time with Jax."
Read moreThe Organic Nature of Grief, An Observer Effect
This piece is from 2016 in my Podcast era. It still rings so very valid. Also, for a nanosecond reading it again I believed my own PR. Nah, just seems so on point. When you read the old stuff you wrote you see a then and a now, which is critical to measuring change. If it’s not measured it can’t be healed. Right?
Read moreThen is Now: Memories
Our memories are of what we lost and fear and suffer over. For many of us it is grief that is unfathomable and relentless, yet for me and my experience with hospice and Donna’s entire spectrum of care, I had memories that gave me hope and kindness and friends and family and a team that was there for Donna first and me as well.
Read moreThe Randomness of Self Discovery
Tolkien coined, eucatastrophe. Defined as “is a sudden turn of events in a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and plausible and probable doom.”
Read moreStitched Together
I see periods of my life as fabrics. Some moments are silk. Others are cotton. Some perhaps gaberdine. Even wool. These periods of time can be measured in connections to others, acts, and experiences. Say there was a time when life was a fine Pima cotton of 800 count. Then it became a smooth silk. Or a rough, torn, frayed denim. Then it changed to a coarse wool. To an alpaca. All of these are laid before me one at a time on a cutting table. It's the stitches that pull them together.
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