I looked up menopause on Mayo Clinic’s website “ may affect emotional health.” Hmmmm. I wish I could blame menopause. I’m trying to rationalize in my distorted mind that my daily crying spells is the beginnings of menopause. I excitedly tell my husband as the Atlantic Ocean waves roll over…

My mother was fierce. Her mother too. I learned that from both of them. I lost the two most important women in my life. I never came back from that. Four years ago I slept next to my mother on the floor. She in a comfortable next to me. Why did everyone tell me she had only a few breaths left? She was breathing so heavily. Even snoring. On July 4, 2019 my mother stopped breathing. My heart stopped beating. I think of her everyday. My beloved mother taught me to love, be empathetic, spread joy, expect disappointment and never give up. There will never be a woman like my mom. She was the best. And I still talk to her. Get guidance from her. See her. Love her. You would have loved her too.

I cannot swim. The irony is not lost on me that I love the ocean. The sound of the waves. It gives me a break from thinking of the 52 years that proceeded me. The ocean gives me the gift of washing so many seashells on the beach with holes…

My mother passed away July 4, 2019 after a progressive decline from dementia. The only things I remember that first year was a global pandemic kept me home allowing me to sob in my pajamas and uncork a bottle of rosé at 5:01 pm. Bill’s mother passed several months before…

So now the best I could do for this amazing young man, a survivor of gun violence, that the best I could do on this rainy, winter Friday night was a cot at the dirtiest shelter in DC. After 6 months in the Ivy league teaching hospital, I wheeled him…

It was on a Friday at 3 pm and Louis was getting discharged from the hospital after 5 months. His doctor Tia become the kind of confident that emailed, text, and called anytime. Day. Night. After I took my sleep meds. Before I took my psych meds in the morning. …

Easter we visit my mother lovingly. red marble with black veins. her name so strongly presented in bold black letters at the very top of the mausoleum. my father and i do the sign of the cross. in the name of father. the son. the holy spirit. my mother’s crypt…

It’s going to be okay, you tell me. how would you understand? only women know. what it is like to have a look. a word. a touch. unwanted at that. not being able to escape. when my mother shared, she desired to be a nun, at age 52 i finally…

This is the not the first time my hair soaked up the smell of death. When Liz overdosed and died i went into her apartment to salvage anything for her 19-year-old son. She spent the $8k she saved for his college semester in 2 months over the summer. When i…