I do not dream about Lizzy. Correction: I have had one dream about Lizzy. She was alive, in my arms, the Monday before the Tuesday morning that I took her into the emergency room. Lizzy, me, and my dead, beloved grandfather (he was alive in my dream), had just gotten off of a plane and…
I loathe this term “the new normal.” The new normal is what I am supposed to be getting used to. Slowly, with time, I am supposed to become accustomed to Lizzy being gone. To the profile and prospect of what my life looks like without her. Five minutes from now, five hours from now, five…
Every time I wake up, Lizzy is still dead. Every time I wake up, I cannot return to what my life was like when she was still alive. No dream or nightmare that I have had since she died is worse than the nightmare that I wake up to every day. The world is filled…
I could not write a post yesterday. In fact, I could not write, read, think, or do much of anything other than stare numbly at the ceiling or sob hysterically. This is because I received a call yesterday that devastated my day. Around noon, I picked up a local number that I thought might be…
be this miserable? spend the rest of your life mourning her? stop living? I hate this question, and I hate its implications. It’s underthought. No, I don’t think Lizzy would want any of those things. I think that if it’s about what Lizzy would have wanted, then she would have wanted to stay with me…
Lizzy was alive for two years. She has now been gone for two months. I do not know how convinced I am by the term “stages of grief.” My experience of grief vacillates between uncontrollable sobbing, numb desolation, acute and tearing despair, and a sort of manic and cowardly avoidance. I am getting better at…
I have been reading almost nonstop since the week after Lizzy’s funeral, alternating between books on grief, loss, and newborn and infant care. Books about Lizzy, books about Cecilia–back and forth. I just finished a book on grief by a woman named Marie Levine called First You Die about living after the death of your…
I have known my husband since I was 15, and for 15 years, until age 30, I believed I loved him more deeply, more desperately than I could ever love anyone else and more passionately than I ever had loved anyone else in my life. My love for him defined me, guided me, and informed…
When I ask myself what do I want from Lizzy, the answer is her loving presence. When I ask myself what do I want for Lizzy, the answer is unlimited joy, peace, love, fulfillment, and relationship. The logical next step is to try to discover how to achieve these things in this world, on this…
When I talk about wanting to die with Lizzy or to be committed to a mental health institution for the rest of my life, I believe these are appropriate responses to her death. When I say “appropriate,” I both shock and scare the people around me, who then wonder if I am spiraling out of…