In one of her books, Madeline L’Engle recounted a story she had heard: “Someone tells me of a story of a bishop who lost his wife and child in a tragic accident.  And he said to his people, ‘I have been all the way to the bottom.  And it is solid.'” I too have found that to be true—for the most part. Like Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.”

 

Word keeper, mother, observer, sacred eavesdropper, close-reader, wounded healer, beauty-finder, skeptic, and trying to put all that into words. Lover of libraries, crepuscular rays, murmurations, etymology, flowers and dachshunds in sweaters; the scents of lavender, coffee, and books. An anglophile whose favorite writing accoutrements are a cup of PG Tips and digestives with dark chocolate.

Published Works

DEAR AUDREY 

After my 33-year-old husband, a well-known rock cellist, drowned in Lake Geneva, Switzerland while touring with singer Regina Spektor, I found myself searching for meaning in the intersection of fresh widowhood and young motherhood. I documented both at Dear Audrey.

Thanks to the Human Heart

"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fearsTo me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."Ode on Intimations of Immortality - WordsworthToo deep for tears.  And so the words...

Welcome Home

A short post because I'm tired after doing my freelance work.  It is taking me so much longer now because I just can't seem to focus on smaller things in life.  I want to hurry up and finish so that I can think about you and this...situation... I find myself...

2 am Looking at Photos

Is there anything that can mitigate the freshness of the pain?I am tired of writing because I have nothing else to say.  It's the same thing.  I try to say it over and over again because words fail me every time. It's like I'm in a haze and a few times a...

And

this must be the nadir.

Trying to Understand

This morning we went to the building next door for breakfast with Audrey's two new friends- Ben and Becket.  Audrey had a lot of fun playing with their toys and didn't want to go home.  I don't blame her- it's just me and her here...I wish it was the three...

What I Did for You

Reading a lot of the memorials pages sent to me for Audrey's book- I am overwhelmed with the goodness of the man I married. In fact, I cannot believe he chose me. And then a lot of my flaws come back to me and how I hunger and yearn for just one more chance to see him...

English Tea

This morning is much harder - although it seems to feel that way every day. I have nothing planned Dan, and I feel like if Audrey wasn't here, I'd be crying a lot. She carried one of the picture frames I have set out on the table over to me just before, pointing out...

Vagabond

Thursday it was sunny again and we had to get of my aunt's house.  We went to the mall and the Phoenix Children's Museum.  At the food court, I got Five Guys burgers for Audrey and I- your favorite.  I'm pretty sure there's even a sticker on your cello...

genuine…

"Your dad was one of the best people I’ve known. There aren’t a lot of people like him—with his humility, generosity, friendliness, quiet strength, and un-pretended and unpretentious devotion to Jesus—though I wish there were. He was such a Christian, living out...

The Most Horribly True Cliches

Home is Where the Heart IsIt is.  The widow is struck homeless.  The house- painting my own walls, the American dream- none of it matters.   The home you have lived in suddenly looks unfamiliar.  Oates says that's because it is drained of meaning...

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

Frederick Buechner

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