Truths I Never Told You

Loneliness is so much worse than sadness, because loneliness, by definition, cannot be shared.

I finally discovered that the love I have for my children is the most powerful thing on earth. It's fierce and determined and an absolute force to be reckoned with. I would do anything for them. On a good day I know that I am far from a perfect mother, but I am all they have, and all I can do is to make sure that I expend every breath trying to do my best.

More than anyone, I understand that a mother can love a child desperately, and simultaneously find themselves broken by the endless demands of parenting.

tradition provides a roadmap, and that roadmap unexpectedly offers me a path through the worst of the grief.

This is our family's tragedy, and we each play a part in the suffering. By sharing it, we can survive it, because we subconsciously remind one another that one day soon, this will end, and we'll still be standing side by side.

Just a little while longer and I should start to feel human again. Warm emotion will gradually seep back into my soul and color will come back into my world. Silent tears will give way to genuine smiles. Sobs will give way to laughter. Fear will give way to hope. Rage will give way to calm. The urge to lash out and hurt will once again become a compulsion to love. If I can dam up the chaos...if I can hold back the storm...if I can just keep my grip on this life for a little while longer, the sun will come out from behind the clouds and life can begin again.

In those months I finally discovered that the love I have for my children is the most powerful thing on earth. It’s fierce and determined and an absolute force to be reckoned with. I would do anything for them.

I’m starving simply to be present with someone who doesn’t want something from me.

The years have been rough and they’ve been kind and they’ve been long and they’ve been short...but everything changes, and the best and brightest era of our family’s life has drawn to a close.

depression isn’t weakness. It’s a matter of brain chemistry. Postpartum depression is no different. Pregnancy and childbirth are immensely taxing on a woman’s body and it’s not at all uncommon for a new mother to develop depression

Motherhood changed me—it had sucked the very life from my bones, and now I was an exhausted, empty shell.

Dad’s language issues stem from a form of frontotemporal atrophy called semantic dementia. His memories are intact, but his language skills have been devastated.

overnight emergence of artistic skill was no late-life crisis brought on by the heart attack. It turns out that sudden visual artistry is a recognized symptom of his particular type of dementia—and this particular type of dementia is known to happen sometimes in patients suffering heart failure.

That stubborn change in his diet was a symptom, too,

language skills were in significant decline, and what I’d thought of as patient listening was actually Dad disconnecting from

This, I realize, is why we have ceremonies like funerals—not for the departed but for the living, to remind one another that even in grief, we don’t have to be alone.

But life has no rhyme or reason sometimes, and when it all boils down, we really are at the mercy of fate.

turns out that sudden visual artistry is a recognized symptom of his particular type of dementia—and this particular type of dementia is known to happen sometimes in patients suffering heart failure.