Grief is a weird place. I’m kind of odd. It’s definitely been a strange combo. One of the things grief has done for me is permeate. I find it everyplace, whether I’m looking or not. It’s like a new crush, an upcoming vacation, a job search. Like a kid thinking about Christmas in November: even …
Continue reading What Grief Does: A close reading you don’t need of a song you don’t care about.
Someone asked me last night how our dog, MacDuff, was doing. It was at an event promoting Nina’s book, which features a whole chapter on his adoption. So he’s kinda famous. The question got me thinking that I tend to view the events in our lives as a specifically human drama, but - as Nina recognized - MacDuff played his own significant role. …
I’m giving a talk tonight about Nina’s book, The Bright Hour, for the Greensboro Library and Greensboro Hospice & Palliative Care. I’ve done book events before, and it always gives me a chance to reflect on what it means to stand in the shoes of someone who’s died, to be their stand-in.It’s weird, for sure. …
This week everyone in the Facebook and Instagram universe is sending their kids back to school, including me. It’s weird as hell but I keep finding myself using the singular to describe my plans, as in “I’m sending Freddy to the Friends school this year,” or “I’m planning to make an effort to be more …
Things have changed in the dating world since I was last single. Of course, that was 1998, so maybe it’s not a revelation. I got married young in 2000 after a brief, undistinguished career as a serial monogamist, so I never actually “dated” per se.Fortunately, I found the right relationship early, got married, and never …
Today is eighteen months since Nina died. Part of me is amazed that it’s been that long. My relationship with her was so fundamental to everything I know that she’s always somehow immanent. But at the same time I can’t believe it’s only been eighteen months. So much has already happened. Kids have changed shoe …
Afterword 