Posts Tagged "finding love"

Last month, I had the honor of read­ing in “The Mama Mono­logues” at Corte Madera Book Pas­sage, along with NY Times best-selling author Kelly Cor­ri­gan and many other tal­ented Writ­ing Mamas. Spe­cial thanks to Dawn Yun, founder of The Writ­ing Mamas, for mak­ing this laugh­ter and tear-filled event pos­si­ble. We raised over $5,000 for Abelina Mag­ana, a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia mother of three who was shot 15 times and lived to tell. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to Abelina and her chil­dren, all of whom are still very much in need of our help, please send a check to: Attn: The Mag­ana Fam­ily Fund, Bank of Marin, 1450 Grant Avenue, Novato, 94945. Please enjoy this video of my piece, “You Think You Know,”...

    My dad is Lutheran, my mom is Jew­ish. My child­hood exposed me to tra­di­tions from both denom­i­na­tions, but I cer­tainly wouldn’t describe myself as religious. Spir­i­tual, yes. Reli­gious, no. In fact, if there is a god, I’m still pretty pissed off at him. Today, though, I can’t help but con­tem­plate the reli­gious mean­ing in both Easter and Passover. Seven years ago, on Easter Sun­day, my hus­band, Erik, and I admired our 17-month-old daugh­ter, Tatiana, as she care­fully grasped pur­ple and pink polka-dotted eggs in the grass. “Do you think about how lucky we are,” I said to Erik. He rubbed my ripe, preg­nant belly. “Yeah, I think about it at least five times a day.” Erik was a rising-star...

Three years had passed since the last time I had seen Erik. This would be inter­est­ing, I thought, as I fin­ished draw­ing the black eye­liner on my upper lids. I slid into a just-tight-enough pair of black pants and declared the match­ing vio­let sweater set win­ner of the “I want to look good, but not too good” con­test. My bed was made for the first time in weeks, its invit­ing pur­ple and red che­nille cov­ers set­ting a serene and sen­sual mood. It was time to present myself as the suc­cess­ful baby pho­tog­ra­pher. Time to show that I was a together 26 year-old woman, some­one who learned from her mis­takes, some­one will­ing to take respon­si­bil­ity for her actions. Time to apol­o­gize for all of the crap...

I had every­thing I had ever wanted … right up until our Easter Sun­day din­ner when my then sev­en­teen month-old daugh­ter and I watched as my amaz­ing hus­band, Erik, slid down the kitchen counter and died. He was 29 and I was seven months preg­nant with our sec­ond child. One minute he was laugh­ing, and thirty five min­utes later, he was pro­claimed dead. Just like that. Need­less to say, it was unimaginable. Six years have now passed since Erik’s death and, again, I have every­thing I have ever wanted. After push­ing through the ups and downs of spousal loss and unex­pected single-parenting, I’d like to think I have earned this right to hap­pi­ness. I put in the time. End­less hours of Post Trau­matic Stress...