As I observed when Dad announced he was going into hospice, humans have been dying for as long as there have been...well, humans. So you'd think we'd be better at talking about it. But here we are in these mortal coils Shakespeare wrote about, struggling to interact with one another when faced with our own mortality (to be fair, some of us have trouble interacting with one another in any situation, but that's a different post altogether). You have all been so incredibly kind

I went to bed last night fairly certain that I would wake up in a world my father no longer lived in. I was right. I woke up suddenly, just after 2 a.m. Wide awake for no reason. At 2:26, my mom called to tell me that Dad had just died. Oddly, I didn't cry--and I think I know why. I have no way of knowing if the following is true--it is likely only the wishful imaginings of a grieving daughter--but it comforts me to think that I woke up because, on his way out, Dad stopped to

Mom emailed last night to say that Dad said fewer than a dozen words all day. Once again, he ate nothing and slept quite a bit, and spent his waking moments seeing and hearing things the rest of us can't. Last night Dan and I called her just to check in, and she was still at the hospice center. So I asked her to put us on speaker so that Dad could hear us, and we sang to him. A little background: My grandma (Mom's mom) died of Alzheimer's in 2008. In her final years, during f

I just talked to Dad. He had just woken up and was pretty out of it. Mom emailed last night to say he didn't eat at all yesterday, and he slept more than ever before. He was fidgety, wanting to get out of bed, and even succeeded in pulling off his hospital gown (the nurses compromised with a sheet across his middle). All these things are consistent with the end. In other words, he has taken Teagan's advice and packed his snacks and stuffed animal for the journey to heaven. He

A lot of people have asked how my mom is doing throughout all of this. And some of them look dubious or disbelieving when I respond, "She's doing okay." They assume she's in denial (honestly, that's a river cruise Maida Wedell has never been on) or that she's kind of stuffing all of her dramatic feelings down somewhere and will have some sort of breakdown once all this is over. You have all heard me joke that my parents are the two most practical people on the planet--but it'

Dad has had a rough couple of days. No one really knows the cause, but my feeling is that after a week and a half being so "up" for my brother's visit, the anticipation of Teagan's and my visit, and the visit itself that when it was all over, his brain kind of threw in the towel. I mean, let's face it: Even if they're the people you love most in the world, visitors can take a lot out of you, whether you're dying of cancer and kidney failure or not. So I was saddened but not s

It's hard to wrap one's mind around the concept of saying goodbye to someone, knowing it's the last time. And it's not something we do very often. I myself had never done it before Dad got sick. Now I've done it twice. Saturday night I sat on the edge of Dad's bed. He held me while I sobbed on his chest. And I thought about how surreal it was to know that I will never see him again in this world. I have known many people who have died over the years, and in most cases I can r

My commute to work is five miles round-trip, and most days, I do it on foot. It takes me about 40 minutes each way and allows me to decompress, get fresh air, and appreciate sunrises like this one (I took this picture yesterday morning). The bonus, of course, is getting in my exercise for the day. My walk takes me across what St. Paulites know as the High Bridge, and it is there that I pass two older gentlemen on their morning run every day. Over the months since I started co

I am a self-taught quilter. Which is to say, I probably do it wrong. But what I lack in technical prowess, I make up for in creativity and love. Like writing, quilting is one of my ways of coping. Working with my hands was a great comfort to me during the three years Dan and I were trying (and failing) to get pregnant. I mostly make them for births, weddings, and milestone birthdays, but this is the second time I've made a "get-better" quilt. Well. That's how it started out,

My dad has never been a particularly demonstrative person. You could blame it on his Swedish roots, his Midwestern upbringing, or his introversion. Regardless of the cause, though, there was never a ton of hugging or kissing in my childhood, and I can't actually remember him saying he loved me (that's not to say it never happened; it was just not a regular occurrence)--for example, it's not something we said when getting off the phone after our regular weekly chats throughout