June 2, 2026

“You found his palette,“ asserted my mother. This would’ve been maybe January 1994. Pancreatic cancer had made her wan, tired, and gaunt but she still exercised her artistic eye.

I had just held up a newly purchased infant outfit. The baby was due towards the end of March. It was a race at that point between life and death. Mom had already outlived the doctors’ prognostications by a couple of months – a status that will surprise no one who ever encountered her will and determination in life. Would she survive long enough to meet her second grandson?

No, she would not.

Cary was not yet two, so of course I had ample hand me downs. But as a second child the same gender as the first child myself, I knew how important it was to give Danny some new outfits too.

The soft browns and taupes of that tiny vest comprised what my mother called “Danny’s palette.” And it is also the colorway of the quilt that Tina made for me. How did she know? 

When she heard that Danny had died, Tina set to work. She lovingly and skillfully made a beautiful blanket, already gift enough — but in Danny’s colors? Woosh. 

My mother would’ve approved.

Speaking of my mother and of Tina, Tina enclosed two books with the quilt. I devoured the one titled “Grief is Love” in two sittings. The author, Marisa Renee Lee, talks about grief in lucid, lovely prose. She’d been devastated first by the death of her mother and then some years later, by the loss of a hard-won IVF pregnancy.

I have two important takeaways.

The first is that I didn’t grieve my mother. I didn’t have time. Danny, born one month and three days after her death, was a super fussy baby. Not only that but the minute Danny was born, two-year-old Cary decided that he’d outgrown naps. Money was tight. Ken left the house at 6:30 a.m. and returned at 6:30 p.m. Most mornings both boys were raring to go at 5:30.

I can’t tell you how many times in those days my jaw dropped to look at the clock in the morning and learn that lunchtime was still three hours off.

We had a calico kitty back then. Calypso. In the June after my mother’s death and Danny’s birth, she was hit and killed by a car. Oh, how I cried! And I knew that when I sobbed for our sweet Calypso, I was also sobbing for my mother.

But?

Maybe some of the tears I cry for Danny are also tears for my mother.

The other takeaway was the author’s notion that we who survive are part of the dead loved one’s legacy. In other words, I am part of Danny’s legacy.

How thought-provoking. What about his person could I express in some measure to continue his energy?

I’ve talked about what a curious person Dan was – remarkable enough in any adult, really, but especially in one who struggled academically. His general knowledge was impressive. He would’ve been all over that meteor story of last week. He would’ve understood that the hail that fell in Denver recently was a product of a warm weather trend, not a cold one.

Can one cultivate curiosity and if so, how?

I plan to support the National Parks because they were such a source of inspiration and succor to Dan — but that will have to wait for a president who isn’t spraying pesticides all over Yosemite (or is it Yellowstone?), who isn’t lifting kill-bans on wolves or selling off forest lands, and who isn’t eviscerating endangered species protections for creatures in the Gulf (the Gulf of Mexico, I don’t need to add). 

Gratitude update: yesterday we received notice that the federal government has discharged Danny’s student loans. I’m grateful that is done. 

When will a stiff breeze stop feeling like harassment, an immediate and traumatic reminder of Longmont in the days before Danny killed himself?

The wind blew almost constantly during our time there this spring.

In early March I collected bits of rusted metal out in front of our rental unit. I always do this. They were mostly squashed bottle caps, so the comparison to coins came naturally.

“Rusty coins for the ferryman,” was a thought I had out there in that windy alley. Bending to pick up yet another “coin,” I’d think: “Passage across the River Styx.”

Across the River Styx lies the Land of the Dead.

The presence of Death and a relentless wind were inescapable in Longmont during those nerve-scraping final ten days of Danny’s life.

I’ve been going back there in my mind lately. Unlike the parent who is stunned to find their child gone to suicide, unaware of their despair, I knew. Those ten days ask for healing as much as anything else. Terror, panic, and hope walked in stride with me every minute of those ten days.

I haven’t been going back to scour out my complicity in Danny’s suicide. No apportionment of blame — for now. More, it has been simply remembering. There’s Danny at the sink filling his water bottle before going to the gym. There’s Danny sitting in bed after dinner, laptop open, face illuminated by the screen. Danny eating the final meal I made us.

Or there we were, walking over to the vintage store around the block where I picked up two garments to use as “cutters.”

Except it wasn’t with Danny, I now realize.

The scrambling of time during acute grief is harsh and disorienting.

No, Danny was already gone. It was with Ken and his brother and sister (who’d flown to Colorado immediately to help) that I went to that vintage store. Cary and his girlfriend too. Shopping was a momentary distraction in between sorting through all of Danny’s worldly goods. Clothes, books, bed linens, sporting equipment, kitchen stuff — all had to be shipped home or dropped off at Goodwill.

The used clothing around the block was deeply discounted because they were closing. I bought a brown and black woodcut-inspired patterned jumpsuit. Cotton. And a rich blue, voluminous shawl with whitish swish patterning. Organza.

I know from other garment-finds that these cloths could last for years, becoming part of my visual vocabulary in both casual and intentional ways.

What do I make, then, of the association with Longmont and Danny’s suicide? Does that elevate the cloth and demand a quilted requiem? Or maybe the darkness condemns the fabric, contaminating it with Death’s forceful and unwelcome intrusion.

I don’t know yet.

Outside of Home Depot this morning, a sturdy breeze stirred up my grief, reminding me yet again of those awful days in Longmont.

It feels a little unfair for something as ubiquitous and impersonal as wind to embattle my heart this way.

“Fair,” Dee. You’re gonna talk about fair?

I know, I know. I find myself in a life now where considerations of what’s fair or unfair are completely off the table.

I planted some of my morning glory seedlings under this planter. Two days ago, we discovered that the rabbits had eaten half of them. It’s not a loss I take lightly — hence the chicken wire.

Any morning glories that I planted in pots are now elevated. Others remain vulnerable.

Sometimes the rabbits’ destruction doesn’t appear to have anything to do with eating. The strewn plant matter gives the feel of a murder scene.

Stupid me. I didn’t put this geranium up on a side table after noticing the decapitation of a big blossom yesterday and this morning all the flowers were gone. Scattered about on the stone as if by a psycho killer.

After last summer when not a single iris bloomed, I’m happy to report there are flowers this year! Over by the black walnut tree too.

A new slaw recipe went well with pork chops and mashed potatoes last night. Toasted walnuts and crisp apples for variety.

These were thick chops, but I still could have overcooked them. It happens more than I care to admit. The magic method? Searing each side for two minutes stovetop, then sticking skillet in a hot oven (400 degrees) for 12 minutes. They were perfect. (Notably, I cut my chop up right away — had I let it rest as recommended it might have lost some juicy tenderness).

One sultry afternoon driving past the lake this week, I was flooded with the felt sense of Danny as a toddler. The days when “excavators” were “ekabators” and “snacks” were “nacks.” It wasn’t a memory per se, but rather a sensory experience of sharing the muggy heat and slight fear that sometimes preceded a thunderstorm. Holding him close.

One woman in our Parent Suicide Loss support group has been writing letters to her son for seven years. She has twenty notebooks full of them. I thought I’d give it a go and this week penned three letters to Danny. In the first two, every sentence began, “I’m sorry…”

Newton’s town dump features a Swap Shop. You can find all manner of things there: cocktail glasses, lacrosse sticks, sweaters, baskets, small appliances. When we go to drop off items, the goal is to come away with less stuff than we give away. It can be a challenge.

This week we left behind: a stack of empty frames (all curb finds — easy); two big plastic bins (they were just hogging space in the garage — easy); a few duplicative kitchen tools (they were challenging the efficiency of drawers — good call); a butterfly house (we were never gonna hang it).

But! I came home with a 1,000 piece puzzle (saves me between $19 and $29 for the next fix), a beautiful glass bowl for the garden, a metal thing that I “planted” as structure for morning glories (see above), some vintage paper Santas mounted on wood (I know. I know), and a decorative wall candleholder.

The product below was the idea for the morning glories:

A portion of a dead tree provides support in another pot. That’s the root at top.

Immediately after writing the latest hand-wringing post, I got up to find that a framed picture of Danny had fallen over, taking with it the three puzzle pieces that had been leaning on it. One puzzle piece landed on the floor.

Hello Dan.

The piece that hit the deck was the lanky guy with a viewing device. A scout? A bird-watcher? Someone who can see farther than the naked eye for sure. Someone who can scan the horizon or examine distant treetops.

I took the sign to mean that Dan wants me to keep looking ahead, to enlarge the frame, to consider a wider perspective. This has a way of also meaning: go easy on yourself.

Thank you to everyone who liked that post or who left a comment (I did end up password protecting it, BTW). I didn’t offer replies, but I see and appreciate each and every one of you.

We sold his bike for $500

And I just want him back.

We gave away most of his books, the rest sit in piles in his old room

And I just want him back.

We sent the student loan people his death certificate and canceled the credit cards and subscriptions and stopped automatic renewals —

every transaction proof of life. 

Gone. 

Beautiful indigo-dyed linen now cloaks the box of his ashes — cloth embroidered with his name and birth and death dates. 

“Danny, March 16, 1996–2026.”

No decisions about service or gravesite. There’s a big emptiness there — one that usually doesn’t matter. We are two lapsed Catholics who never adopted an alternate tradition.

People who might come are spread all over the country or dead themselves. And what is this town to me? To his father or brother?

And anyway, I don’t really want a stone or a lovely service 

I just want him back.

We’ll sell his car in June for 10 or 12 grand and I could care less.

I just want him back.

We’ve downloaded all his photos to the computer and someday I’ll look but not now, definitely cannot look now. 

I took screenshots of some playlists on Spotify before cancellation, but I can’t listen, not now. 

I just want him back.

I write about him every day and say his name, Danny, Danny, Danny, but am I supposed to be satisfied with the ephemeral when I can still recall his thick hair and beautiful skin and handsome smile? That almost loping walk? 

He has no body now.

It was often windy in Longmont in early March, so now it’s as if the wind here harasses me — no longer a result of temperature and pressure but rather a cruel reminder of those final haunted hours. 

Don’t get me started on train whistles. 

He’s never, ever coming back. 

I don’t need to be happy ever again. That’s not it.

I just want him back. 

PS I know it’s too early to even contemplate acceptance. I know it’s too early to get past my sense of responsibility. Danny’s death is still so very, very shocking. The rawness of this grief colors everything right now. But I know that down the road, things will look different.

PPS I cried watching the last Colbert show. What are we even doing?