Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
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 …
I wonder if my mother was beautiful. I wonder if we shared the same hair color. If her eyes were blue. If she grinned when she held me. If she held me. I wonder if she thinks of me. Surely she must think of me. At least on my birthday. These are things normal daughters …
Loss can feel like a great abyss, like my parents are a trillion miles in space, on a planet I’ve never seen, in a place I can neither fly to nor telephone. But death doesn’t end a relationship. Nor does it end a connection. No, it’s not the one I want. I want them here. …
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 …
