Members

Da thump… Da thump… The very first time I have ever truly learned the sound of my heartbeat was when I was grieving for Rosalie.I can’t remember how long it was after her passing, but that night lying in bed in the dark, I felt the intense longing of loss. She was dead – forever. I did not know how to reach out to her, to feel her again… to feel her embodied presence in my life. I pressed my head closer to the pillow, tears streaming gently, my body curled like a baby under the doona. In this fragile …Read the rest of the story…

Call me crazy…but…I’m not a big believer in death. If widowhood has taught me anything, it’s this: When one’s body melts away, the soul is set free. Free from pain. Free from sorrow. Free for bodily limitations. Free to soar! Until illness consumed him, my husband (Dick) gleefully tested bodily limitations on a variety of playgrounds. Ski slopes, bike trails, sailing seas, back roads where he could drive like…well…like no one should. The only force-of-nature that could keep him off a golf course was lightening. (And it took lightening bolts—plural!) His vibrant, adventurous spirit invigorated and inspired all of us …Read the rest of the story…

The snows of Minnesota were legendary in my mother’s tales of childhood winters. Swirling snowstorms she and her sisters would walk through to get to school, ice skating on frozen lakes and parking lots. Magical white Christmases, where they shared some of their best memories before their mother was stolen away by breast cancer at the tender age of 33, leaving my mother and her twin, Martha at 12, my aunt Sandy at age 8 and aunt Judy who was barely 6. It was my mom who taught me to make snow angels and she would share stories of how …Read the rest of the story…