children, grief, letting go, memories, parenting, Photograph by Tamara Beachum
When my kids were small I would easily purge toys and ephemera from their rooms with some regularity. A few items that they couldn’t quite release yet would be put in boxes that I would store for them to go through later. Later never really came though and now that they are all grown up they don’t have an interest in those boxes at all. “Give it all away,” my daughter said casually. She didn’t feel the need to look. Now that they are on the other side of childhood it’s harder for me to just load up the boxes for donation. So I’ve been going through them and, even though very few objects are making the cut, it has been an emotionally challenging job. But there was a bright spot that lifted my spirits when I got to the bottom of the most recent box and found this little sweetheart of a snow globe. I can’t recall all of the details around it and my co-rememberer (yes, I made that up), her father, is not here for me to ask. I seem to remember this snow globe was in my daughter’s Easter basket one year. The date on the bottom, 1998, probably means it was her last Easter basket as an only child. Her nickname at the time was “little duck.” When her brother began to talk he gave her a new nickname and there was no going back. Immediately, I knew where this snow globe would live next. A friend’s daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome. Birthdays are hard for her. While she would like to have a...
Kenwinks, landscape, letting go, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Photography
Yosemite National Park - Heart over Half Dome (June 2010)
accepting new love, grief, hope, letting go, moving forward, widow
When I started this blog I wrote about the pluff mud of grief. In it, I outlined how I thought my life would go…my Plan A. By now you know that Plan A went awry in a few ways not the least of which was the death of my beloved husband. So what do we do when Plan A is not an option anymore? Move on to Plan B, right? Should we take second best? Not even close. Michele Neff-Hernandez, founder of Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, was living her Plan A in 2005. She had a husband, three kids and a career as a personal trainer. Life in her Plan A was good, challenging, and stressful at times but all the same, amazing. Her widow journey began after she kissed her husband goodbye one afternoon. Phil left for his bike ride as was his routine but would not return, his young life cut short by an SUV. Breath by breath, step by step, Michele began to learn what it was like to live in profound grief and to move in a world that no longer had Phil in it. Plan A was wiped away. Jump forward to today and you will find Michele standing in front of a room full of widows and widowers delivering a keynote address at Camp Widow in Myrtle Beach, SC. Our Plan A is gone too. Gently she reminds us that we don’t have to settle for Plan B. We can create for ourselves a new Plan A…an amazing one. Yes, it’s hard but equally, yes, it is possible. She urges us to take the...
book recommendations, grace, grief, letting go, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Pinterest, prayer
I have a confession. I’m a life-long Presbyterian who went to Catholic school (that’s not the confession but probably enough to make one crazy right there.) I am currently an elder in my church which would make my grandparents bust with pride. My grandfather was a stalwart Presbyterian church elder and my grandmother was the quintessential church lady and official silver communion plate polisher. Not a meal was taken in their house without grace spoken before it. Sandwich over the sink? Say grace. So here it is: I don’t know how to pray. My grandfather and father were the official family grace sayers and used a standard prayer. Check. In school we had the rote memorization of the rosary prayers. Done. None of those prayers felt like a personal conversation with God though. Don’t get me wrong, I have spoken to God quite a bit in the last five years but I’m not sure begging counts as prayer. My prayers sound a lot like wishes to my ears: that my husband would live, that my father would live and before that that my grandfather would live at least long enough to meet the great-grandchild I carried. He did not. My timing is off. The futility of when I pray has led me not to do it so much. It seems I’m always asking for the thing I so desperately desire after the conclusion has already been reached. “Please let this test be clean,” I pleaded. Too late, the cancer was growing. The test was just there to show the foregone conclusion. This was the case with my father. I...
car, grief, letting go, memories, permission, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photograph by Tamara Beachum
His car was worth $3. No really, count ‘em: one, two, three. That’s it. According to the blue book value the trade-in value was a whopping three bucks. But that 1989 Volvo station wagon was worth so much more than that to me. Ken and I met in the year that car was created, 1989. In 1991, we married and, planning ahead, bought a sensible vehicle that could serve as family car for us and company car for Ken’s photography business. Our other cars – five of them – came and went but “The Truck” as we called it was always there. It was our rock. It carried precious cargo in safety seats and everything else from photo gear to bails of pine straw. It was our workhorse. The Truck took us on adventures. The console became a scrapbook of sorts holding a smooth rock from one journey, an abandoned skate egg sack from an annual beach trip and a ticket stub from the tallest lighthouse in North America. Only Ken had climbed that lighthouse late one afternoon before the rain set in. The Truck was our safe harbor. When Ken was sick The Truck sat until it became sick too. A few months after he died I had it brought back to working condition for our daughter. Hearing the particular rev of its engine and the sound the tires made on our cobble driveway was a comfort. She was able to drive it into her senior year in high school but its age, twenty years now, was showing. Pieces started falling off. New noises and squeaks made their...
children, college, grief, letting go, parenting, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Pinterest
My oldest child goes off to college tomorrow. She’s ready. It’s time. I’m ready. It’s right. Then why is this stupid tear crawling down my face?! The shopping is done, the gear organized and after some girl time getting mani/pedi’s this afternoon we will start loading the car. Whoa…it’s getting real now. I spent the morning taking care of some last minute paperwork and making sure any final fees are paid, printing receipts. When my girl was little she would have what her dad and I called, “Teeny-tiny-temper-tantrums.” They were not so teeny really. Well, I just had one when the printer was not forthcoming with my receipts. One should not get so bent out of shape over an empty paper tray. I suspect grief. This next step in her life is a good thing. I know that. But this is also an ending and we’ve had our share of those over the last few years. To be fair, we’ve had new beginnings too, some very good ones. This is one. “Every end is a new beginning.” ~ Proverb I’m also struggling with the idea that this is not happening the way that it “should.” Her dad should be here. He had an absurdly long reach. How are we going to get things into the cabinet above her closet? He won’t be there to capture the events of the day with his camera. I will try but I tend to forget to take pictures when I get caught up in the moment. There is one shot I would make sure to get though, him kissing her head before we...
ALAL on Facebook
ALAL on Pinterest
Tamara on LinkedIn
Follow on Twitter
