Toni Lepeska
When a Parent Dies
Expressing our grief through storytelling deepens our understanding of grief. And that deepens our potential to heal. I’ll be part of a podcast this coming Saturday, the day before Father’s Day, to encourage anyone, experienced writers or beginners, to utilize this important tool within their grief journey. The authors you’ll hear will be reading their …
Are you going through a storm? Do you feel battered by the modern world’s equivalent of swirling winds and pounding rain in a sea of uncertainty? I remember the day my dad died. He was there, and then he was gone, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. The storm of …
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 …
The loss of a loved one is difficult enough but what often follows are impossible questions, bitter anger and self-accusatory thoughts that nag us with what ifs and should-have-dones. What lifts us out of the quicksand of such a situation and puts us on the path of healing? What puts lingering questions to rest and …
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 …
I thought I needed to get around people. What I needed was to be alone. I’m a loner of sorts. A homebody. An introvert. I was raised by a woman who left the house only two or three times a year. When the stay-at-home orders came down amid COVID-19 fears, I thought “I’ve got this.” …
The coronavirus is messing with the ways we grieve and mourn. All over the news and all over the country, we’re hearing about social distancing – and funeral services aren’t excluded despite their cultural and emotional importance. In America, funeral directors are staggering events like visitations or wakes to minimize the number of people in …
Daddy was my first Valentine. Superman was my second. I cleaned out my parents’ house after their deaths and found a baseball card-type picture of Superman. I’d scrawled inside a cartoon bubble “I love you.” I spent the next four decades looking for a real, huggable Superman. For a man to sweep me up and …
