Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
My mother lived a reclusive life, beginning about the time I turned 8. She left the house two or three times a year. Dad did the shopping. But when I got older, Mom ventured out every spring for our sale. It’s the one thing we did together. After she got sick and then after she …
I want to thank all of my readers today and invite you to follow a series of posts that begin tomorrow, March 28. The posts will reveal how friends and other kin help us navigate our lives as the incredible burden of grief presses on our hearts. They “stand in the gap” left by the deaths of our parents. …
I’m blessed with a lot of space, but many others struggle with finding a space for the things they inherit. Useful things aren’t the challenge. Grandmother’s casserole dish? To the kitchen it goes. But what about the things you aren’t going to use? Things that perhaps aren’t at the top of the sentimental list, but …
Do you dream about your parents? Do your loved ones seem alive again in your sleep? I love dreaming about my parents, but often dreams are uncomfortably instructive rather than happy. Such was the case in 2015. That spring, I was focused on devising a way to articulate for my first book what the cleaning …
I didn’t like my name. School teachers and classmates misspelled and mispronounced it. Others expected me to be a boy, to be Tony. Not Toni. But I’ve long since gotten over that, and even love my name now. I’ve never met nor discovered through Google another Toni Lepeska. It’s unique. Maybe you’ve struggled with your …
I’ve got a special relationship with stuff, but a professional organizer who visited our church this week challenged my attachment, not only to my belongings but to things I inherited from my parents. Kathy Armstrong lets go of things. I latch onto them with unmatched ferocity. I didn’t recognize the extent of my attachment until …
Writing is a pretty isolating endeavor, but I’ve learned that while I sit in in front of a computer all by myself, I do not write alone. And so I want to thank you, my readers. In the past two weeks, the number of followers to this blog has doubled. Others are readers but are …
My first Valentine was my daddy. If you had a good father, you know the tremendous stabilizing influence they provide. While other valentines came and went, my daddy remained. Do we mourn mothers more than fathers? Perhaps it seems so. An emotional umbilical cord links us to them. And yet, when we lose a father, …
I struggled receiving comfort in the idea that my mother was in heaven, even though I believed in the afterlife. And while I am delighted she isn’t suffering anymore, the whole thing for me was she was gone from my side. I believed she gained so much. But I had lost so much. Seven years …
