Alzheimer's

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Coastal Language of Ambiguous Loss & Disenfranchised Grief

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I can sense the relief in my interactions with others these days. It is FINALLY light after 5:30pm! Yes! Folks are smiling again. Hope in the form of longer days in the Northern Hemisphere has arrived. We passed the midpoint of winter February 1st and “suddenly” first light crests the horizon well before 7am and daylight lingers longer. Last Tuesday at 6pm when I set out on my Mazama Street Ramble, there was still a vague hint of light in the west as stars started to bud. A clear night blossoming after a day of steady rain.

Nature takes the seasonal shifts in stride. If I look back through my camera roll, there are photos of daffodil tips poking through the soil in February from years past. Already the hellebore are blooming and if I draw a dogwood twig close to my eyes I can see the beginnings of budding. From a distance the deciduous trees appear to still be slumbering, but beneath their exterior they are awakening. It all feels predictable…or at least variations on a theme. And humans, for the most part, we like predictable.

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Lesson From My Mentor, Grief: Sitting With Discomfort While Embracing Beauty

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Tulips began erupting from their sleek oval bulbs in April. Long stems hugged by thick winged leaves, one flower per stem. Colors the pastel pink of tongues, the vibrant red of heartbeats, the cream of moonbeams, the yellow of lemon drops held in cupped hands. Tulips surpassing their daffodil bulbed relations with a flourish by month’s end. One completing their laborious cycle, having awakened in late winter with tips barely gracing the earth to now drooping in browned petaled demise, waiting to fall back into dormancy. The other, as their cycle nears completion, throws open their petals with wild abandon, tossing them to the ground one-by-one leaving the stem bewildered, naked for all to see. Daffodils, my heart flower, resonates with the steadfastness that is the root of me. And yet, in slowing my pace during this pandemic time, the allure of tulips is calling to the wild in me. A wild that keeps bobbing to the surface with greater frequency with each passing year.

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Grief: On Keening, Honesty, Healing, and even a bit of Whimsy

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The rain has settled in for the day as I settle into the beige velvet chair of my hotel room—laptop open, journals in piles, scattered papers, and iPhone camera roll close at hand. I have returned to my favorite retreat during the winter months—the Oregon Coast. Cannon Beach. I have come to write. Take time to focus on what is becoming a persistent poke at my heart. Actually, it is more akin to having several toddlers gathered around my ankles all vying for my attention. “Write me!” “No, work on me!” Poems. Non-fiction prose. Blog posts. That book about my spiritual sojourn and weaving it into the journey through my mother’s Alzheimer’s. How grief became my mentor through that journey. That area where from my training and experience I am an expert, so I have something to offer, right? They are all clamoring for my attention.

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Sneaker Waves-Opening Boxes, Finding Grief

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“Never turn your back on the ocean.” A teaching offered to me as a youngster. Living close to the Oregon Coast where sleeper waves can heave logs on to shore or wash an unsuspecting walker out to sea in an eye-blink, it is a sound piece of wisdom. Even as I connect in my being to the sea as “Mother Ocean,” I was reminded of this on a recent visit when I was knee deep in water seconds after noting the waves were a good 20 feet out and seemed to be biding their time, lapping more than galloping. She wanted my attention—“Daughter, something is stirring.” Something is stirring.

Honoring All Grief and Loss During the Holidays

I’ll be honest, Thanksgiving was not easy this year. Oh, it ended on an upbeat note as I enjoyed dinner with my daughter and her boyfriend at his extended family’s home, but it began with the ever present reminder that my ninety-year old mother is declining and any expectations need to be set aside in order to meet her where she is in any given moment. I am on my own grief journey with her through Alzheimer’s and what a holiday looked like last year, or the year before, or a decade ago, can not be reproduced in 2017 like a Facebook memory.

Swimming with Grief

December 17th, my father’s birthday. My dad would have turned 93 this year if he had lived so long. He lived to 63, barely. Funny how grief can linger submerged for a decade or two or even close to three and then bob to the surface for no apparent reason. Or maybe there is a reason—a mother with Alzheimer’s who, as she drifts farther out in a sea of old memories, brings my father up a lot, stirring my own recollections. She still gets peeved with him for “leaving” so long ago, knowing it wasn’t a choice.

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after a pause, my latest Substack, “teachers come in many forms,” is available. it is a reflection on how my children have been my teachers and the value of amazement, as well a few other tidbits including a couple of thoughts from my ret
a Substack reflection on failure, falling, letting go of certainty and how that allows for awe and wonder. and also the need to Slow Down. i hope in a world that demands your attention 24/7, you are finding time to Slow Down and be tender with your h
this week’s Substack reflects on national poetry month and the importance of poetry in our lives from childhood to our elder years. how poetry can deepen conversations around difficult conversations. and can be playful too. i hope you take time
this week’s Substack (link in bio) delves into a difficult subject, deepfakes and the use of AI technology and how it harms “women and girls.” (i use more expansive language) and yes, i weave the natural world in there, because that
this week has been an emotional roller coaster and my latest Substack explores the journey through time spent with Birds and Water. Grief, loss, compassion…and gratitude. (it involves news I have to move again.) i hope you will take a few minu