In our ongoing quest to learn to live with the long-term impact of losing a child to suicide, both my wife and I have found our own outlets to chart our paths forward. Sometimes we move together, and sometimes individually. Both are important as we search for ways to make peace with the reality of…
Tag: love
When Father’s Day Doesn’t Feel “Happy”
Father’s Day is one of those days on the calendar I’ve come to dread, and I know I’m not alone here. For those of you who have lost your own dad, or if, like me, you’ve lost a child, this one is for you. On a weekend when the entire world seems to be saying…
Wading Back Into Christmas
How do you manage when Christmas doesn’t feel so merry? This is the third holiday season for our family since losing Rivena, and it’s a question we are still trying to answer. Losing a loved one is hard, period. Losing a child is soul-crushing. And it’s no secret that the holiday season can stir up…
An Elusive Path Forward
Why is it that an arbitrary date on a calendar can bring so much anxiety? There is no rational, logical reason to fear a date. And yet, today has come like a freight train steadily gaining speed. The simple fact that I have fallen into a habit of only publishing on this site around birth…
Desperado: You’ve Got to Let Somebody Love You
“You’ve got to let somebody love you, before it’s too late.” If you close your eyes, I bet you can hear that famous lyric from the Eagles tune playing in your head. For all my daughter did to embrace that line, too late came too soon. Today should be Rivena’s 27th birthday. She died by…
(Not) Turning 26 Today
Sometimes love just isn’t enough. Those were the only words I could manage to write the day after Rivena died. In the numbness of a long flight back home, I pulled out a pen and the new journal that my kids had given me for Christmas a few weeks earlier, and those 5 words were…