Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
Memphis’ first snow of the season reminded me of my daddy, and got me to thinking about how differently we can mourn the loss of each parent. Dad grew up in Connecticut and had a lot more experience with fierce winters than me. He once won a snowball fight so completely that I opened my …
Grief is such a common experience, and yet so individual and personal, that we’re bound to step on each other’s toes from time to time when trying to define it, express it and get through it. I thought about this after the Twitter chatter on the deaths of actress Carrie Fisher and, one day later, …
The tragic news of performer Debbie Reynold’s death the day after Carrie Fisher’s, her famous daughter, illustrates the tremendous stress grief puts on loved ones left behind. People can indeed die of a broken heart. According to a USA Today article, Reynold’s son said the stress of his sister’s death “was too much” for …
The tragic news of performer Debbie Reynold’s death the day after Carrie Fisher’s, her famous daughter, illustrates the tremendous stress grief puts on loved ones left behind. People can indeed die of a broken heart. According to a USA Today article, Reynold’s son said the stress of his sister’s death “was too much” for …
The late afternoon sun beamed down on us through the clouds of the incoming front as my husband bent down on his knee and asked me to marry him. I giggled. “Of course,” I said. That happened eight years ago today on the roof of the historic Memphis Peabody Hotel. What’s a happy …
I once wrote that each Christmas gets better and better after losing someone you love to the grave. I meant well, but I was wrong. Stay tuned. There’s hope in this story. Last year, a great pall fell upon me for reasons I cannot pinpoint. I was unhappy with Christmas. Go away. …
I’m trying to figure out how to put my new life together. It’s been eight Christmases since I lost my mother and 11 since I lost my dad, and I still am trying to figure out this “new normal.” Especially this time of year. Maybe it’s like following a recipe. I don’t mean that …
Myth causes us to judge ourselves. It also causes others to judge us. When we don’t measure up to what our myths tell us, we think we’re broken. We try to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. Here are five myths that need snuffing out of the grief story.
Fidel Castro died, and I wanted to tell my mother. You know, she’s dead, too, and whether the Castro news is important to her now, I don’t know. But it would have been important if she’d been alive because she saw his tanks roll into Cuba and destroy her island fantasy. Single, childless and 30-years-old, …
