Bereavement, Death of a Child

Lessons from Wild Boy

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Lessons from Wild Boy He was a toddler who played with plastic dinosaurs, Tonka trucks, and dirt. His older sister made me feel like an accomplished mama because whenever I reminded her not to touch the house plant, she would obey. “No, no,” she’d say, standing yards from the cascading ivy. Wild Boy didn’t care. Not only did he knock the plant stand down, but he watched the wet soil seep into the carpet. Then he jumped on all four into the mess, even gnawing a leaf to see how it tasted. If there was a puddle on an afternoon […]

Bereavement, Death of a Child, Your Grief

Writing the Gratitude!

Friday, February 6, 2015

When Daniel died, I wanted more. More smiles, more birthdays, more words, more experiences. Like any mom, I wanted my child to have a full and healthy life. When Daniel breathed his last, all I had was four years and five months and eight days. He hadn’t made it to five; he hadn’t even made it to four-and-a-half. We had more sunsets to watch, more waves to play in, more watermelon to drip down our faces. I felt cheated. My journal reflected my anguish and sorrow. I wrote day after day about how unfair this all was—for me, for my […]

Death of a Child

A Mama Finds Memories in a Duplo Box

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

In my closet sits one duplo box filled with handwritten cards.  The cards were for my little boy Daniel.  The boy is now gone, but the cards written to him still remain. When we moved from the house where Daniel lived, Daniel didn’t get to go with us.  But the yellow duplo box with cards did.  A few of the cards he’d received were after hs first surgery before we knew the lump in his neck was cancer. Most were sent to him during the months he was treated at UNC-Hospitals. The duplo box had been where he’d stored all […]