Grief Diary #31: Being Seen, Really Seen

My dad always gifted me books on my birthday growing up. At ten, I had all the simplified versions of literary classics like Peter Pan, Treasure Island, and David Copperfield. My grandfather, a Sri…

Grief Diary #30: Gradients of Like and Love

During the first few sessions of a coaching engagement, my client and I, we try our best to get clear on their desired outcome, a subjective or objective way to measure progress towards that…

Grief Diary #29: Aches and Pains

I come from a meandering river of pain

Bottled clouds on my mother’s face

Doubled bricks on my father’s back

Hushed guts of my ancestors

And God knows what shrouds and droughts

Before them all

Grief Diary #28: Swimming Upshore

I can’t swim, but I swam

upstream, upbolt, upside, updown

I can’t swim, but I swam

away from the nice, kind, tight man

towards new and exciting and grunt-worthy work

I said I can’t swim, but I swam

And a…

Grief Diary #26: Dead Birds

As winter began thinning here in Toronto, I have been going on more walks. On one of these walks on a sunny weekday afternoon, I saw a dead bird and a dead squirrel buried…

Grief Diary #25: University Times

I first moved to Oregon, USA, in August of 2012. I was 27, technically a fully-formed adult, although on the metric of wisdom and openness, I would have scored pretty inadequate. I moved sight…

Grief Diary #24: The Survivors

After I was born, my mother had many, many miscarriages. I vaguely remember her being rushed to the hospital or her coming back home with a heart of gray and dark. I grew up…

Grief Diary #23: Bite-Sized Grief

As I waited for the Toronto Courts to finalize my mutually-filed and straightforward divorce, I thought writing a novel based on my marriage was a good idea. By that time, I had done enough…

Grief Diary #22: World Events Mirror

Last week, we got a peek into the chambers of the Beckham family palace as the oldest son, Brooklyn (I love this name, by the way), announced over Instagram that he wanted no contact…