Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
Give yourself credit. Even if you aren’t doing grief like your mother, best friend or neighbor. Even if you haven’t been out of bed in a week. Even if you still collapse in tears recalling how you missed your father’s last Christmas.
Thanksgiving is the time of year that we taste our grief. Literally. I mean, no one makes homemade cornbread dressing like Mom. But … she isn’t here anymore to make it. It cannot be the same … So, like any perfectly sentimental daughter, I always make dressing like Mom made dressing. I use her recipe. …
The question goes through our minds in a dozen different ways and sounds like this: “When will I feel better?” We expect to grieve during the funeral and for weeks after the funeral, but then a month passes. Six months. A year. Five years. We want our living hell of loss to be over. Or …
By Toni Lepeska The coronavirus pandemic has elicited a new catch phrase – “stay safe.” I hear it on the telephone with doctor’s offices and in text messages from friends. It has replaced “take care,” “see you later,” and “be careful.” How essential is safety? Where can we find it when our world has been …
Grief forces us to start over. It forces a huge start over. And then there are the smaller start overs in life. That’s where I am today. It’s scary. It’s uncertain. Starting over also is full of possibilities. Full of new opportunities. Full of growth. I invite you to come with me. For the past …
Are you in the winter of the soul, a season of darkness and barrenness? Maybe you wonder if there could ever be a spring again. January is cold, even here in the South. The trees are bare. The ground is hard. The grass is pale. Life is asleep. Sometimes my inner life looks like the …
Are you an adult orphan? I’d never heard of the term until I became one – and felt like one. I read it in a book somewhere. I then realized others had felt the same way as me. I identified with the term though my mother was still living. Why? Because with my father’s death, …
Change. It’s the time of year we embrace it. Change our weight. Change our attitude. Change our career path. We make resolutions, determined to be different in the New Year – to change. Other changes we fiercely resist. Familiarity is a comfortable companion. While routine rules, different drools. We like status quo. But change, as …
A dozen thoughts whirl around my head about my parents and my care-giving days as I navigate a new, temporary reality – being the one to receive care. This reality is opening up an old chapter on my life that was filled with stress and grief. A chapter that I thought was behind me, fully …
I found myself in a courtroom again recently, but this time I was there as a plaintiff in a civil matter instead of as a newspaper reporter. As I took a seat and waited for the judge to arrive, I glanced around. I checked out the at-ease lawyers in the front row and the anxious …
We’ve got a cage in our living room. There’s plenty of space for a bowl of water, a compact bed and turnaround provisions, but it is, nonetheless, a cage. Tuffy gives me the sad face. He knows this face works to get what he wants. Droopy eyes. Lowered head. Closed mouth. But not this time. …
I wait in line at the post office until James calls me forward. He offers a restrained greeting despite our connection. He knows who I am, but he’s in work mode. All business. I step up to the clerk’s counter that he’s stooped over. We make eye contact as his gnarled but muscular hands await …
I wrote earlier this month about a long ago event of betrayal. Of pain. Of grief. Yes, I’m used to writing about grief, but not this grief, not this particular loss. The Wonder Report published the article My Dream Didn’t Come True, and Here’s Why It Was the Best Thing to Happen I began the story with …
Do you ever step back and think, “Boy, if they could see me now”? Or maybe you think your parent or spouse is looking down from heaven and smiling at the person you’ve become. It’s been years, but we want to connect. We want to share. We want the loved one who died to be …
I hear voices, but don’t be concerned. I don’t need medicine. I don’t need a psychiatrist. You hear voices in your head, too. Our voices try to pull us down daily, feeding us messages of fear and inadequacy. They tinker with our sense of identity. They attack when we are weak from grief and stress. …
When you’ve lost your first love, your biggest fan, your highest image of womanhood, Mother’s Day is never the same again. A day set aside to express gratitude to her becomes a day of grief. I really hated Mother’s Day the first few years. I faced Mother’s Day’s Most Difficult Moment if I did not skip …
Letting go. The term and its derivatives come up frequently in grief circles. I detest them. I cringe when I hear them used. It’s typically thrust at us, as in, “You need to let go” or if you do this or that “then you will let go.” Or we ourselves decide our healing is in …
How should we respond when well-meaning people say things that injure us? Has anyone ever delivered any of these platitudes, clichés or other expressions meant to comfort you as a griever? “I know how you feel.” “Time heals all wounds.” “God must have needed her more.” “You can have more children.” “She’s in a better …
What is the impact of prolonged illness on grief? Does it give us time to get used to the idea of death? Does the anticipation in some way lessen the sting of loss? I think on these questions as we mark Parkinson’s Awareness Week and World Parkinson’s Day, April 10th on the 2019 calendar. My …
Why do we love sad movies? I’m no psychologist, but may I suggest that art helps us grieve. It helps us cope by showing us others grieve, maybe in a similar way as we have. And they lived to write a screenplay about it. Or a book. Or paint on canvass. How? We see if …
What changes the course of our grief? What puts us on the path of healing? What quiets the raging questions, self-accusatory thoughts and pit-sinking sorrow? May I suggest an “aha” moment – an epiphany. A sudden, transformative thought or realization that changes perspective and gives us release or relief – a piece of healing. I …
If there was a time I was stuck in my grief, it was the fall of 2013. In my frustration over lack of progress in multiple areas of my life, I berated myself with unkind thoughts. I toiled with several simultaneous issues – career, illness, relationships, professional envy. If my self-esteem had been a liquid, …
Blinding light streamed through the curtains and hit my canopy bed. I buried my face under the covers for as long as possible, but couldn’t escape. I cracked open my eyes. What was that on the dresser? A stuffed leopard. A container of chocolates. My eyes widened. Now I was ready to get up. I’ve …
Do you think life is a set of coincidences? Or do you believe a master engineer is guiding your life? I must say I believe the latter. Why? I keep bumping into people and opportunities that fit into my life and into my dreams. Sure, I’ve got to put my horse in the race, but …
