Welcome to Life After Lil

I’m back in Colorado this week. My daughter—a new nurse—is transitioning off orientation and feeling overwhelmed. She told me she needed support in person, and I admired her for that. This generation doesn’t seem to struggle with asking for help the way mine did. As a Gen X’er, it never would have occurred to me to say, I’m not okay. I would have pushed through, believing that needing help was weakness. But my daughter knows her limits. And she asked for what she needed. My husband and I made a promise to our two youngest children—both newly graduated and navigating their first real jobs—that we would show up in person once a month. He visited our son in Southern California. I flew to Colorado. I get ten days here to support my daughter. To show up. Not to smother—though sometimes the line blurs—but to be present. When I arrived, she was just coming off a brutal three-day night shift. Her apartment was messy. She was out of toilet paper. I was amused and quietly amazed—but also remind...

​ Grief has a funny way of shape-shifting. This week, it wasn’t tears for the daughter I lost — it was a deep, gnawing ache for the two I still have. My 22-year-old twins — brilliant, overwhelmed, and barely keeping their heads above water — are calling home more often. I don’t know whether to feel proud, panicked, or just permanently tired. After the holidays, my son headed back to grad school in a rainstorm that looked like the apocalypse. He didn’t want to go. I saw it in the way he lingered over breakfast, the way he came to sit beside me and rested his head on my shoulder — something he never does — on the very morning he was supposed to leave. My husband offered to drive with him. My son accepted gratefully, still dragging his feet. It would have been sweet if it hadn’t also been quietly heartbreaking. I had to nudge him. Push him, really. With all the love I have, and all the heartbreak that comes with it. Because that push meant: I trust you to try again. Meanwhile, my daughter...

Grief is quieter right now. Not gone. Not resolved. Just… softer in its volume. I notice it in the way my days move. In the absence of that sharp edge that used to catch me off guard. In moments when I realize I’ve gone a few hours without thinking about what hurts—and then feel a flicker of guilt for that quiet. For a long time, grief announced itself loudly. It demanded my attention. It rearranged my breath, my body, my sleep. There was no mistaking its presence. Now it shows up differently. It sits beside me rather than inside my chest. It hums instead of roars. And sometimes, in the quiet, I wonder if I’m doing grief “wrong.” If loving her means I should still be aching in the same way. If the softening somehow means forgetting. But quieter doesn’t mean less. And it doesn’t mean disloyal. It means my nervous system has learned how to carry what once felt impossible. It means my love has found a way to live alongside my life, rather than eclipse it. It means my body—wi...