Some days, gratitude feels easy. Other days, it feels like trying to read fine print in the dark. And if you’re in one of those darker stretches right now, I want to say something simple: there’s nothing wrong with you. I’ve had seasons when gratitude felt out of reach. When people would remind me to “focus on the good,” and all I could think was,  I can’t see anything right now.  Not because I didn’t care. Not because I wasn’t trying. But because life was heavy, and my emoti

There was a time when the word gratitude felt impossible. People love to offer it up as a cure-all— look for the silver lining, focus on the good, find the lesson. But when you’re living inside real loss, none of that lands. It doesn’t comfort. It doesn’t soften anything. It just reminds you of how far you feel from the person you used to be. After Ken died, I couldn’t make sense of gratitude. Everything felt fragile, like the ground beneath me had its own annoying agenda.

We’ve all seen it happen. Someone who’s usually plugged in—responsive, steady, present—suddenly goes quiet. No updates. No replies. Just…silence. Years ago, when Ken was sick, that silence was my daily reality. I’d be at work trying to keep up, holding everything together with tape and willpower, and then there were days when I simply couldn’t. I’d disappear. Not because I didn’t care or wasn’t committed, but because life had pulled the rug out from under me. I think about

There’s this surreal split-screen feeling that happens when you’re grieving, but work keeps moving like it always does. Your life is coming apart at the seams, and yet the calendar notifications keep rolling in—status meeting at 9, project deliverable at noon, performance goals due by Friday. It’s jarring. It’s exhausting. And it’s real. When my husband, Ken, was sick, I was fortunate. My company gave me flexibility and time away when I needed it. I know that isn’t everyone’

Workplace change always looks so tidy on paper. A reorg announcement lands in your inbox with color-coded boxes and arrows pointing confidently toward the future. Leadership says things like “alignment” and “efficiency,” and everyone nods because that’s what you do. But inside? It feels a lot messier. There’s a specific kind of quiet that settles into a team after a big shift. The kind where everyone’s still answering emails, still hopping into meetings, but there’s a heavine

Lately, I’ve been carrying around this steady, low-grade urge to give the world a giant dose of empathy. Not in a grand, superhero way. More like a quiet nudge. A refill. A top-off. Something warm poured into everyone’s emotional coffee cups before we head back out into the swirl of our lives. It’s not lost on me that this urge didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It comes from the life I’ve lived, the grief I’ve survived, and the way losing Ken rearranged every part of who I a

Grief and loss don’t define me. They inform me. For a long time, I thought grief had rewritten my entire identity. After Ken died, everything felt marked by before and after. I didn’t recognize the guy in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the world he lived in either. It felt like grief had stamped my passport and decided where I was allowed to go next. But with time, I realized something important. Grief didn’t take over my story. It reshaped it. It sharpened what mattered. It

There’s a strange thing that happens after you lose someone you love — the story you thought you were living ends mid-sentence. One minute, you’re a “we.” The next, you’re a plot twist you never saw coming. In the early days after Ken died, I couldn’t make sense of anything. The timeline shattered. The main character disappeared. The supporting cast didn’t know their lines anymore. I felt like I was stuck between chapters — waiting for the next page that wouldn’t turn. And f

I’ve always loved a good ritual. There’s something comforting about repetition — the way lighting a candle, brewing the same cup of coffee, or playing a familiar song can create a little order in the chaos. Rituals are how I’ve made sense of the world for as long as I can remember. They’re tiny ceremonies that say,  I’m still here. After Ken died, I held on to rituals like they were life rafts. I needed something to anchor me when everything else had come undone. I kept the

Every so often, you meet someone who changes the temperature of your day — not through grand gestures or deep conversations, but through a single, simple truth. That happened to me recently at the library book sale where I volunteer. I didn’t know her name, and she’ll probably never know how much her words stayed with me. But sometimes, that’s the beauty of small encounters — they arrive quietly and leave something behind. “I don’t understand why some people are so lucky,” sh

I woke up to the news that my friend Craig has died. It was less than a month ago when his sister Teresa, also a dear friend, texted me to tell me that, after some investigation, they were blindsided by the news of a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Teresa sent regular updates via CaringBridge of their journey through attempted treatment, and ultimately to hospice care to make him as comfortable as possible for his remaining days. I know that journey well and sent them all so much l

When I first had the idea to bring Ken’s one-man show,  My Foot Left , back to life as a digital premiere and fundraiser, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting myself into. Honestly, it felt a little like agreeing to run sound and lights for the original production back in 2002—I was excited, terrified, and very aware of just how much I didn’t know. What I did know was this: Ken’s story mattered then, and it still matters now. His humor, his grit, and his light carried hi

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of saying  yes since putting this fundraiser together. It’s such a simple word—three letters, one syllable—but it can crack open whole new worlds. Especially when you say it even though you’re terrified. Or maybe  because  you’re terrified. That’s how I felt when Ken asked me to run lights and sound for his one-man show,  My Foot Left . Let’s be clear: I had  zero  experience doing anything like that. My tech résumé at the time

I’ve written about my late husband, Ken , many times here. In fact, writing about him and our experience together with his cancer was a coping mechanism that served me well since his re-diagnosis in 2009, though his illness and death in 2011, and still does upon occasion to this very day. 💔✍️ This September 21, he would have turned 60. 🎂💜 I want to commemorate the date with the  digital premiere and fundraiser  of the acclaimed one-man show he wrote and starred in back in

I flew to Los Angeles over the weekend to attend my sister-in-law Katie's memorial . Even seeing it writing or saying it out loud still doesn't quite compute for me. This was a trip I looked forward to (to be together with family and friends) and dreaded (because I didn't want it to be true) in equal measure. I was humbled and honored to be asked by my brother-in-law Craig to speak at the service--to tell a story about Katie. Craig and both my nephews (who I will refer to as

The world is grayer. The stars have lost their sparkle. Sharp edges have dulled. And my heart has another fissure, bleeding more love and all things good with the death of my sister-in-law and friend, Katie, last week—someone so loved I can't fully come to grips with a world where she doesn't physically exist. It doesn't seem possible to silence such a powerful force of nature. She possessed the kind of light I don't think I'll ever stop looking for. Hiking to the summit of P

I wasn’t completely surprised that the orange felon won the election. This country is blatantly infected with ignorant and barely-masked racism and misogyny (even by women voting against their own best interests) in favor of some perceived self-interest, whether financial or something else conjured and inflated by Right Wing media, it was always a possibility. For whatever reason, demagoguery and grievances of our teetering democracy resonated with you. You live in imagined f

Year after year this date greets me in many different way I can never accurately predict. It used to feel like an attack—an onslaught of sadness and so many other overwhelming feelings. I dreaded this date. But, over these thirteen years (I can’t believe it’s been thirteen years), it’s become gentler. Subtler. Signs of healing showed themselves each year. Sometimes there is nothing. No void. No emptiness to fill. And others, in the days leading up to today, I begin to feel ti

Since returning to work after a week off, partially spent in the natural beauty of Door County, Wisconsin, I've thought a lot about the feelings of simplicity and wholeness I experienced there. And those are things I want to bring to my everyday life--even when I'm back at work. Where is your "happy place?" And how do you pull those feelings into your workday life?