Tag Archives: grief

March 10, 2026 · 4:13 pm

Still Here in Spirit

I’m sure a lot of people do it—hold on to things that their loved ones used and perhaps cherished during their lifetimes. That’s why they call them keepsakes—something tangible that helps us keep our loved ones close to our hearts even if they’re gone from this earth. In theory, they’re items that hold special significance or meaning because they were once important to the deceased or to the person who ultimately winds up with them. Sad to say, I’ve collected a fair number of mementos over the years. And they all serve the same purpose—connection. Furniture, china, artwork, clothing, jewelry, knickknacks and boxes upon boxes of snapshots that flood our minds with memories the instant we open them. Some of it’s useful, some of it’s not especially.

I realize it makes no sense to hang on to my dad’s wedding band. It’s currently stuffed in a tiny box in a dresser drawer. I sometimes get it out and slide it on my thumb, trying to remember how it looked on his hand. I suppose I could have it made into another piece of jewelry, but I don’t want to change its integrity. It just doesn’t feel right.

My mom’s and my grandmothers’ rings, by contrast, I decided to resize so I could wear them. Not every day, but more often than I thought I would. It sounds weird but I’d like to think that when I put them on, they’re still with me, at least in spirit. They’ve come along to our granddaughter’s birthday parties, to special dinners, to holiday celebrations, to my aunt’s and uncle’s funerals, to our oldest daughter’s wedding, to one of our twin’s musicals as a choral director, to our other twin’s engagement and to their college graduations and recitals (they were both music majors). Again and again, as I glanced down at my mom’s diamond ring, it’s as if she were sitting right there in the seat next to me, experiencing the music, the performance, the ceremony or whatever was happening at the time.

By the same token, my brother, who I lost to suicide 20 years ago, has been “attending” numerous events that I thought he might appreciate. I wear some of his shirts like a warm hug and if the occasion presents itself, I tell people that I do it because I’m proud of the man he was and that he needs to “get out and about with me.” Occasionally, I’ll open the bottle of cologne I saved just to remember, and it’s as if he’s right there. Likewise, my husband occasionally visits some of his mother’s clothing we’ve stored in the attic and swears he can still smell her perfume even though it’s been almost two decades since we lost her. It’s a way of connecting to his past and I surely understand.

I suppose the weirdest keepsake to date is a plant that my mother-in-law loved and cared for as it sat on a windowsill over her kitchen sink for the longest time. It was an African violet and we kept it alive close to 15 years—no small feat given our less than impressive track record of houseplant survival.

My dear friend, Pam, makes it a habit to say “Good morning” and “Goodnight” to her husband’s urn so that she might better function throughout each day. She also sleeps in Bill’s favorite T-shirts as a rule, helping her to remember him and the occasions when they were purchased. She kept his wedding band and has a gold heart imprinted with his unique thumbprint. Not surprisingly, she has a wealth of pictures and mementos of their times together and she still has a few of his voicemails, so that she won’t ever forget his voice.

Another dear friend, Ann, shared with me that she still has the duty assignment cards that were her aunt’s, who was a volunteer Red Cross Driver during WWI and WWII. That same aunt personally witnessed the Hindenburg explosion in 1937 in New Jersey and Ann wound up with the newspaper clipping from that day. She also kept some dishes and handmade furniture from her great grandparents and poems written by her uncle. Generations of family history were also preserved and passed down to her—something she values beyond measure. Ann also suffered a heartbreaking loss of her teenage son and has kept the model ship he built among a host of special mementos.

I truly understand why people like me keep the keepsakes. It’s so the connection remains and the grief is temporarily replaced by feelings of comfort and remembrance.

Welcome to my world. It’s where I live (probably wearing one of my brother’s shirts). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesFromPlanetMom. Signed books are available on Etsy at PlanetMomMarket.

Words Matter

Currently, I’m reading an incredibly moving book about suicide (Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley). Not surprisingly, it triggered some memories of my own brother’s suicide of nearly 20 years ago. So I thought I’d post something I wrote in an effort to express my feelings at the time.

I didn’t even know the woman, but I bristled when she spoke. Of course, her words weren’t even intended for me and I’m sure she had no idea how capably they would seize my joy and take me back in time to a day I’d rather not remember.

I was standing in the card aisle of a local department store of all places, wrestling with indecision famously. As I read and reread each of the selections I was considering (encouragement for a woman battling cancer and a birthday wish for a dear friend who had moved a world away), I weighed the words contained within each heartfelt message carefully, recognizing their power to connect souls in good times and in bad.

“CARDS DON’T MATTER,” I heard her grouse through clenched teeth, chiding her children who were likely picking out a birthday greeting for a friend or a favorite cousin. “We’ve already gotten a gift, now choose a 99-cent card and let’s get out of here,” she spat, indignation spilling from her lips. “He’ll just throw it out anyway,” she reasoned.

Though a towering wall of Hallmark’s finest separated us and I could see exactly none of what had transpired in the adjacent aisle, the exasperation that wafted over the transom was palpable and left little room for misinterpretation. Without question, it had been a long day and patience was nowhere to be found. Clearly the novelty of traipsing around K-Mart with kids in tow had long since worn off.

Granted, I had been there and done that as a parent, patently consumed by a simple yet impossible wish to be somewhere else in this life besides searching for the perfect gift for yet another Hello Kitty-themed birthday party. That said, I have frequented the brink of insanity while shopping with my brood more often than I’d care to admit, shamelessly enraged by something as ridiculous as a rogue wheel on a cart from hell coupled with my children’s irksome demands: “But we have to smell the smelly markers before we buy them, Mom. We have to make sure they smell juuuust right. And then we have to look for a birthday card with a little dog on it. Wearing a pink tutu. Maddy likes little dogs. And tutus.”

Frustration, I understood.

What rankled me to the core was the premise of this woman’s argument. That “cards don’t matter.” Because sometimes they do.

Like most people who learn of things that are unspeakably difficult to handle, I unearthed this little pearl of wisdom mired in grief and plagued by guilt. As if it were yesterday, I remember rummaging around my brother’s house in the days that followed his suicide, searching for answers or perhaps a tiny glimpse into his troubled world. Granted, I didn’t know him nearly as well as I could have…and probably should have. As I sifted through his CDs and thumbed through his books, eager to gain even a modicum of insight, I stumbled upon a drawer with a handful of cards neatly stacked within. Cards he had saved. Cards that likely meant something to him. Cards filled with words that apparently mattered.

It was at this point, I’m quite certain, that I felt a deep sense of regret and shame, for none of my cards were among those he had harvested. Surely, I had sent him a birthday greeting (or twenty), a congratulatory note regarding his beautiful home or his wonderful job, an irreverent get-well card to brighten an otherwise unenjoyable hospital stay, a wish-you-were-here postcard from Myrtle Beach or the Hoover Dam. Hadn’t I?

Incomprehensibly, I couldn’t remember. All I could wrap my mind around were the missed opportunities and the paltry thank-you note I had written that lay on his kitchen counter. Unopened. The one my four-year-old daughters had drawn pictures on as a way of offering thanks for his incredible generosity at Christmastime. The one that mocked my ineptitude and chided me for failing to mail it sooner…so that he might have read it…and felt in some small way more valued than perhaps he had before. The one that reminded me that words left unspoken are indeed the worst sort of words.

I’d like to think he occasionally sat on his couch and sifted through that cache of cards on a lazy afternoon, warmed by the messages scrawled within—a collection of remembrances worthy of holding close. Likewise, I hope he knows of the countless times since his death that I’ve been overcome with emotion in the card aisle of many a store, pausing in the section marked “brother” to read and reflect on what might have been—an odd yet cathartic sort of behavior.

So as one might expect, the horribleness of that day flooded my mind the very instant I heard CARDS DON’T MATTER. But instead of letting it swallow me whole, I turned my thoughts to why I had come—to find the most ideally suited messages for two special people, knowing they would feel special in turn.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under "G" is for Guilt, "S" is for Shame, Bookish Stuff, Love and Loss

Tagged as books, brothers, grief, Grief is for People, guilt, loss, parenting, Sloane Crosley, suicide

January 2, 2021 · 6:07 pm

If Only You Had Known

Today I can’t help but be reminded of that awful chapter in my life…and in the lives of so many who were affected my my brother’s passing 15 years ago this very hour.

Part of me wants to believe that your death was preventable. That something someone said or did could have kept you from making that horribly irreversible decision to end your life six years ago today. Perhaps if circumstances had been different, you too would be poised to usher in the warmth and sweetness of springtime in a few short months and together we’d be putting winter’s chill behind us.

But another part of me realizes that it couldn’t be so. Too many hardships had come your way and the weight of your world had simply become unbearable. No, I’m not making excuses for what you did. I’m merely slipping into your shoes for a while so that I might come to grips with how ill-fitting they actually were—to shoulder your burden for a time, if only to acknowledge its oppressiveness.

I still long to understand and to “feel” the reality that was yours.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t find the “what-if-ing” game pleasurable in the least. The pain and sadness I feel as a result of thinking things might be different if this or that had happened is inconceivable. Yet, I persist. And without question, the events immediately following your death led me even further down that path of certain uncertainty—because it revealed to me, for perhaps the very first time, the profoundness of your impact on this world. I just can’t stop wondering if all this could have been avoided if only you had known the true measure of your worth….

Nothing could be clearer in hindsight.

For starters, over the span of the two-day event, more than 1,000 people (YES, ONE-THOUSAND PEOPLE!!!) came to pay their respects, to say goodbye, to offer oceans of comfort—and to share with us how you had touched their lives forever. It soon became very apparent that you had done just that. The endless line of callers, both young and old, snaked its way through the door and all the way out to the street, continuously—for five full hours. That steady stream of mourners endured both the cold and eventually the darkness just to be near you and to deliver those all-important words—that you MATTERED to them. You had made a difference in their lives and would never be forgotten.

Of course, friends and family already knew you mattered. Or at least we thought we had a handle on how greatly you had influenced others. But I doubt anyone could have ever envisioned such an outpouring of love and support—such a tremendous tribute to you as a person. I think it stunned us all. Naturally, I felt proud of the man you had become; but at the same time, ashamed that I hadn’t recognized it myself. I regret not giving you the praise you surely deserved.

Your students were the toughest to console. It was pure agony to look into those sorrowful faces—so young, so innocent and so completely devastated by their loss—and ours. You were their guide, their inspiration and their rock in many cases. Some wore broad smiles and bore the gifts of tales that indelibly touched our hearts—of time you had spent…of lessons you had taught…of hope you had instilled. Others arrived teary-eyed and spent, with loads of baggage and intolerable grief at their sides. Still others carried anger and resentment in their hearts and truckloads of questions on their lips. Tell me, won’t you, how were we to explain the inexplicable? To assign meaning to that which seems completely senseless? To order their disordered worlds—along with our own? It was an impossible task to say the least.

Parents, counselors and staff members were there too—as much for the kids as for themselves. Together we tried to assure them that “things would be okay,” that you “would always be watching over them,” and that they “should continue to try and make you proud.” High schoolers are tough sells, however. No surprise there. They wanted you—not a bunch of words. And a rewind button—not the ugliness that had become reality. It killed me to see so much disappointment and so many broken spirits. I can only hope they’re faring better now.

Needless to say, hugs were plentiful that night as were the tears.

Still more profound…scores of individuals have visited your gravesite, now bursting with the scent of pine and new fallen snow. A multitude of lovely mementos have since joined the dozens upon dozens of sweet-smelling roses that dressed your casket in a blanket of red on the day of your burial.

More recently, I learned that many have driven to the canyon itself—to quietly lay bouquets at its very edge, the site where you willfully and tragically ended it all. No doubt, some felt it more fitting to toss their floral offerings into the cavernous abyss below, so that they might somehow reach what remains of your spirit, now mingling amidst the soft and silent snowflakes.

Some of your students not only left flowers but also carved initials and heartfelt messages into that infamous Grand Canyon railing you breached. Perhaps, to them, it will offer some comforting assurance that their words of farewell will never be forgotten. Nor will the bonds you shared be erased.

More evidence still of your apparent worth on this planet was the bizarre, yet moving turn of events on the morning of your funeral. Oddly enough, a bomb threat, rumored to be in your honor, was made that day. As a result, school was canceled and more people were able to attend your services. Standing room only, as I recall. I have to think this would have made you smile (despite the felony charges that could have been levied against someone who apparently ignored the risk that day).

I truly do wonder…that had you only known how many people would be affected by your absence (and how greatly those same individuals would suffer), you might have decided not to take your own life. But then again, perhaps it was inevitable.

Sadly, we’ll probably never know.