Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
Under the bowels of the dressing room sink, I discovered a half-completed painting, a sort of portrait of an unfinished life It wasn’t the last evidence I’d find of a life interrupted. Nor the last grief trigger to cross my path. I found Mom’s half-done crossword puzzles. Her hand-drawn plans for a circular driveway that …
I’m accustomed to feeling all sorts of colliding emotions with grief – anger, depression and even regret, but shame was a new one on me. I didn’t even know what to call it when I experienced it. Do you ever feel shame within the context of your loss? My dictionary defines shame as “a painful …
I should have known better. I’ve been grieving long enough to know. But because I didn’t think ahead, I planned the last grand sale of my parents’ belongings right before Father’s Day. And right before “death month” – July. Both my parents died in the month of July, three years apart. Every year I march …
How do we survive grief? A major component is embracing new things. New routines. New relationships. But we stubbornly resist. We want things the way they’ve always been. Must we discard the old to make way for the new? Sometimes perhaps, but not always. Healing is at its best in the memories that contain both …
