Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
I found the lists after he died and wished I’d been more attentive to and thankful for who my father was. He’d put check marks beside the names and addresses on the list. They signified thank you notes he’d sent to each of the people who’d given him a gift. My father was a mail …
What does an unfinished life look like? One way is a half-empty container of Coke. That’s the first encounter I had with an unfinished life. My father had been dead only a few hours. I walked into the kitchen and there was the rest of his Coca-Cola in a sippy cup. It wasn’t the last …
All this time, I thought I’d given the funeral home the wrong lipstick color. I never was much of one to wear makeup, though I’d grown up seeing my mother paste it on before the rare occasions she’d leave the house. So I didn’t pay attention to her lip shade. Itty bitty nonessential details gain …
Beginnings are full of promise, aren’t they? Filled with anticipation and hope, we launch into a new career, a new home, a new relationship or, as now, a new year. But death and grief are about endings. We mourn what was. We’re sucked into a vortex, unwilling at first to believe we’ll be happy again. …
I want to pause to thank all my readers for their support in 2017 and recognize that excitement over a new year might escape us as grievers, especially if our loss is fresh. The country stands at the precipice of 2018, glancing behind and gazing ahead, but as grievers we likely have been doing that …
Each Christmas is the first Christmas for someone – the first Christmas without mom or dad. Or without a husband or wife or child. Or without a grandparent or uncle or best friend. All the carols, all the joy, all the tinsel. It feels like a dagger to the chest. The loss of who isn’t …
I found a parking lot and no trespassing signs on the 8-foot-tall chain link fence. Their home was gone. I clutched the wire, pressed my face against it, and hung there like a forlorn child. A piece of my parents I wanted to touch was out of reach. Actually, …
I sensed a need to be in touch with my parents, and so I got out the greeting cards. I possibly have one of the largest collections known to man. I collected them from throughout the house. Over the past eight years, I discovered them inside dresser drawers, on top of the coffee table and …
I’m thrilled about the direction my life is headed, but a month ago I was too sick and worn down to make such a statement. Do you feel beat up by life? By illness? By grief? As I did, you probably are looking for a comeback, for a way to get back in the game …
