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The Pure and Simple Truth is Rarely Pure and Never Simple
“I was having this conversation the other day with a friend about Instagram and how everyone thinks everyone else’s life looks perfect all the time, when in reality it’s not. I’ve written about this...
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A Heart-Shaped Friendship
I can’t even begin to tell you how many friends I’ve made in my ten years of blogging. I’ve pretty much said yes to everyone who’s ever reached out to me, wanting to meet up or connect. And, in turn,...
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Home from NYC: A Love Letter to the Women in My Life
It’s Wednesday morning and I’m humming with happiness. It’s probable that I should be exhausted and stressed out, but I’m not. Not at all. I’m happy. I feel full, and bursting with excitement about my...
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Dear Juliette: Nine Months In, Nine Months Out
Dear Juliette, You are nine months old now. You have officially lived outside of my body, just as long as you were inside of it. There’s something about this nine month mark. I felt it with your sister...
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On Running Away, Not From Home, But To It
This morning when I was driving Vera to school I rolled down the windows to let in the morning air. It’s spring in Los Angeles right now, which may not seem real to people in places who go through...
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A Room of One’s Own (Finding My Voice in the Midst of Parenthood)
A week ago I said goodbye to these three and drove away from my little home in Santa Monica. It was weirdly easy to do, an indication, I think, of just how much I needed to get away. I think the most...
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That Moment When What You Had Hoped For Is Better Than What You Imagined
On Sunday I took the girls down to a writer friend’s house in Orange. It was way hell and gone, over near Riverside, and took over an hour to get to. Jules slept and V watched TV and I stared at the...
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Finding Hope, After Mother-Loss
It’s been almost fifteen years since I first came across Hope Edelman’s book Motherless Daughters. I was twenty years old and living in New York. My mother had been dead for two years and I was more...
View ArticleFor Now
I know I haven’t written here in a while. There are a lot of reasons for that. Mostly I’m just overwhelmed, and nurturing this place has fallen to the bottom of my list of obligations. I keep a pretty...
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Rules of Inheritance: The Movie
I couldn’t be more thrilled, or more humbled, to announce that my book is being turned into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence. You can read about it in several places online, and I’m going to paste the...
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Happier Hours = Happier Lives
I met Aidan Donnelley Rowley, as I’ve met a lot of amazing people in my life, online. A friend told me about Aidan’s blog, and after reading it for months, and then reading her first novel, I reached...
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On Ten Years Without My Father
The last thing my father ever taught me was how to install a showerhead. I was twenty-five years old and taking care of him at the end of his life in a small condominium in Southern California. The...
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Dear Girls: On Being Brave
Dear Girls, Last week I took you for a check up at the doctor’s office and you both got a few shots. Picture me sitting on the exam table one of you in each of my arms, clinging to me, hot and sweaty...
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Upcoming Reading!
I’m doing a reading and signing next month in the NYC area, to benefit the incredible Bereavement Center of Westchester. I think it’s going to be a really special evening. Would love to see you there!...
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Objects of Loss
In the months and weeks following my mother’s death, my father and I carefully pulled apart the pieces of her material life. We sorted through her closet, threw away her cosmetics, gave away her...
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Thinking About Thinking
I was always a weird kid. When I was in sixth grade I memorized the entirety of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, simply because I loved it. This is a poem that is not only bleak and dark, but one that...
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On Grief and Healing
I began working in the world of grief in 2007, officially becoming a bereavement counselor for a hospice in Chicago a few months after I graduated from my masters program. I did so almost with...
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Dear Vera & Jules: Think of Me as Every Place
Dear Vera & Jules, It’s Christmas afternoon in Los Angeles, warm and sunny, and there is still sand between my toes from our walk on the beach today. You both woke up promptly at 6AM, excited to...
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Dear Girls: On Half a Lifetime Without My Mother
Dear Girls, This week marks 18 years since my mother died. Exactly half my life ago. Every day after January 24th, 2014 will mean that I have been alive longer without her, than with her. My mother, my...
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Coping with Grief During the Holidays
Today I want to talk about grief during the holidays. The holidays are upon us and it can be a loaded time if you are grieving—or even if it’s been a long time since you’ve lost someone, but they were...
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