Today would’ve been my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. It is difficult to write about my parents’ marriage before Alzheimer’s when my mother has been dead for 9 years and my father has remarried twice since then. My parents had an Aggie romance. They met at Texas A&M through a mutual friend. Their first date was…
This is the face of high functioning anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression is my norm. My anxiety started in elementary school. And my depression started in middle school, when I was in sixth grade and my dog died to be exact. I never know how much of it is situational and how much of…
The first year of grief after a loss can be the hardest. While the ache of grief never really goes away, I’ve found the pain does lessen. The fog does clear with time. During the first year of grief, you are finding your “new normal” and learning your own strength in the process. My mother…
For a few seconds, my dead grandmother was right there next to me shopping for plants. I was walking through the garden center of H-E-B Plus on a particularly muggy August afternoon. I was leisurely picking out plants and loading them onto my cart, despite the heat. My dead grandmother was right there next to…
My mother’s parents were married on August 8, 1949. Four years later, in 1953, my mom arrived on the scene. My grandparents’ greatest gift to me in 1953 was my mom. I miss my grandparents. But I feel (and see) their presence all around me every day. So much of who I am comes from…
