What do you do when time behaves like a rascal, defiant and disobedient? What day is it? What month? How long has Danny been dead?
Time always slips around some, but in acute grief it stretches and compresses like an unruly adversary — another aspect of loss.
Today is the four-month anniversary of Danny’s death. Ken and I find ourselves flummoxed. We seesaw from wondering how it can be only four months to wondering how it’s already been a quarter of a year.
I didn’t think this was a significant anniversary, but the amount of weeping I’ve done today tells a different story.
Last night, I tossed and turned and dreamt about Mick Jagger. Nonsense, really. I was in the kitchen and something frustrated me and I pushed some objects violently aside. Mick Jagger said, “You’ll never be president.”
Why would I want to be president and why is Mick Jagger in my kitchen, judging me?
We saw him in the stands of the England/Argentina game, of course.
I don’t know enough about soccer to have an opinion, but boy are people mad on Threads. Many think that Argentina was afforded every advantage in ways both obvious and unfair. I don’t know. I just know that when the games end, there will be a space that needs filling.
Hand-wringing returned. Yesterday I kept imagining calling 911 that final night. I hear myself whispering that they shouldn’t use their siren and that they should approach the apartment quietly. And then I imagine announcing to a furious Danny that I couldn’t let him throw his life away.
You don’t have to chime in about culpability or whether such an intervention would’ve worked, even for the short term.
I know. I know. I think I know?
Last week, I met with a friend whose child has made more than five attempts on their life. This mother, my friend, shared that both times they institutionalized her daughter, it made things worse.
There’s so much suffering in the world.
The rabbits eat at a furious clip this summer. It’s hard to watch my ferns drying up in the heat and the hosta being devoured by those cute little fuckers. More death.
Our corrupt dipshit of a president plans to address the nation tonight. I’ll admit to being on edge, even though sane commentators say, Calm down. The federal government doesn’t control elections. He can say whatever he wants and it doesn’t mean he has the power to do what he says.
There are many things that I wish I believed.
Meanwhile, the upside of this diarrhea lettuce outbreak is that we have twice recently shopped for local produce.
I got some gorgeous onions that the bagger said you could bite right into they’re so sweet. And look at these beauties below!
For dinner, we’re gonna have an onion, goat cheese, burrata, ham, and asparagus tart.
I just had the worst massage I’ve ever paid money for. This guy used the same somewhat frenetic sweeping gesture on my back, over and over and over. He’d insert a little neck action or a quick rub of my arms and then return to sweeping, sweeping my back. Big circles. Nothing along the spine. No delicious pressure in the lumbar region. Not really relaxing.
And then there was how he sometimes used hot oil, which eventually felt good but was at first too hot and that of course made me tense up every time he went for more oil. At the end, he used a rough, hot towel to wipe my skin, which I actually liked but again it was initially too hot. WTF?
My thoughts didn’t help. I kept hearing in my head: I have a body and Danny does not. I have a body and Danny does not. Over and over the thought went through my mind like the masseuse’s ineffective and boring back sweeps. I have a body and Danny does not. At one point, I wondered about the Reiki session I’d set up for Danny the week before he died. Did he relax? Did she touch him?
On the table today I found it a little hard to breathe because the face hole was lined with a cloth that shrank the opening. My mind wandered. What if my masseuse was sloppy and inattentive because he was attuned to the ether? Any minute, he might ask, “Who’s Danny?” And then he’d tell me my son was near.
Ha! Such are the disordered experiences of bereavement, I guess.
We got a lot of rain last night
I slept like shit last night. Apparently all I had to do was publicize my gratitude for decent sleep to bollocks things up. I was busy, busy, busy telling myself that I’d out and out failed at creating a family, because, well, look!
Ken woke up long enough to tell me that wasn’t true but I stuck with it as if a self-trouncing was the commandment of the wee hours.
Eventually in that wounding perseveration, I remembered Danny’s despair. Suddenly compassion entered the bedroom and bloomed in my chest. This wasn’t about me at all. Danny had not been able to handle how fully life had disappointed him. My poor sweet child could see no path forward. He was sick of trying.
Collection of collages about surrender, the solstice, death, and indigo
Last night I attended some Dem-blue organization’s zoom call because Jamie Raskin was slated to appear. I admire him deeply, but I’ll freely admit that I showed up at least in part because Raskin also lost a son to suicide. His 25 year-old Tommy left behind a note that said: “Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”
Paper collage dble-x’d with Paris Collage prompt
Danny quoted Stephen King: “Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
Paper collage made in Assisi, 2019
Because I don’t want to end with such darkness, I’ll leave you with a saying of Roberto Frega that Raskin quoted last night: “The solution to the ills of Democracy is more democracy.”
[This patchwork was written June 25 to a prompt in writing class. Forgive the repetition of things said before. It is part of the grieving process I now know. Saying it and then saying it again].
It must be the last day of school. It is loud over there. Loudness with jubilation.
A man walks past out front. What? No dog?
I will water everything today, even though it rained heavily in our absence. I’m allowed. I will order groceries online. A small extension of grace to myself.
The peace lily that sat on the table next to Danny’s body at the chapel in Longmont now blooms. It was a gift from a former girlfriend — a young woman schooled in grief having lost her beloved brother just a few years prior.
I hear doves cooing. In LA, most evenings an owl occupied the ficus tree outback and hooted. One hoot with a hitch, followed by two smooth hoots. An East Coast owl would produce three smooth hoots, we learned from my brother.
Cloth by Liz Ackert
Agent of wisdom, harbinger of death – but can an owl also act as a messenger from the other side? On our second-to-last day at my brother’s, I found an owl feather below the tree. It sits now on the box of Danny’s ashes but there is scant comfort in constructed symbolism, no matter how unexpected or serendipitous.
Ten minutes after arriving home, I have the hose in my hand and look! Here comes one of the neighborhood robins, food in her beak. “Oh hello!” I say. My friend in Lincoln recently shared that after her husband died, a pair of robins showed up repeatedly at her back sliders – looking in, eager and intent.
I have nothing to prove.
I have lots to clean up.
There’s weeding to do for one thing. Always weeding. There are feeders to fill and a broken heart in need of tending. It will never be fixed, my broken heart, but it does demand care.
How the dark scared me last night!
After fourteen days of being subject to my brother’s TV selections, having power over the remote control helps with my mood. A little anyway. How pathetic. Especially when I keep hearing Danny’s final words to me.
Recall that when he asked why should he should be back by four, I mentioned a birthday cake adding, “And because every time you leave I sit here in anguish wondering if I’ll ever see you again.” And on that fateful morning, his final morning, the morning of his 30th birthday, he answered, “Maybe find a show to watch?”
I honestly think he was trying to be helpful.
When had I last said “I love you”? Not a hand-wringing question because we said “I love you” to each other all the time. Every phone call. And he knew I loved him even if I didn’t say it. But still, I wonder: when was the last time I told Danny I loved him?
A new round of regrets emerges. I wish in those last 10 days I’d sat next to him more. Not to campaign for his survival, not to query about his pain, just to sit side-by-side. Close. Every moment I was distracted now seems like a loss. What do you mean I went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast and wrote for an hour? And why didn’t I ride in his car instead of with Ken when we drove to the rental unit?
Well, for one thing he was insistent about needing to be alone. Drove to Nederland because he needed to be alone. Went fishing because he needed to be alone. Drove around after going to the gym.
For another thing, he had to be alone to purchase a gun. To make his plan.
March 2026 at Boulder Creek
I wake and don’t know what coast I’m on. We thought we’d be awake till midnight or later our first night home but crashed at 10:30.
I have nothing to prove.
I have lots to clean up.
Should I be trying something new? Baking bread, for instance. Or sewing garments. Challenges for the body and mind, perhaps offering a balm for the soul.
I think perhaps we should go to Iceland for Christmas. Will we have swept the midterms? I cannot even think about the collection of ornaments in the attic. One every year, gifted to each boy.
It costs $40 to go to Good Harbor Beach now and you need a reservation. It’s enough to make me wanna find a beach in Rhode Island. Or to stay home. And water the garden.
There is something I keep saying in my head to my dead son. “I wish you could’ve stayed.”
Over and over. “I wish you could’ve stayed.”
Is it terrible to admit that I also feel relief on his behalf? All struggles done, laid to rest. All worries, some of them life-long, bundled and tossed overboard. Relief.
Turns out genre murder mysteries are not the escape I’d hoped for. So many survivors of the crime of murder after all are parents. Of course they are. Kate Atkinson I now know is an ace at describing grief. Would I have even noticed her skill five months ago?
How cozy does a mystery have to be to afford escape? No possible suicides. No parents of dead kids. Gun shot deaths are problematic as are well-depicted aching absences in the aftermath of violence. Good luck.
I have nothing to prove. Surviving the day is challenge enough.
The kids over the fence scream with excitement and joy. It’s the last day of school. I hope it’s early release — for their sake. So much happiness is exhausting. Just like so much sorrow.
KT and Dan
The peace lily from Katie thrives. Danny did not. Her brother did not. But do you know who is thriving? Hunter Biden! And I’m here for every word of his snarky comebacks. Our president is insane. It is no longer an exaggeration and that’s all I’ll say about that.
Today I will look at bread recipes. Maybe flip through my drawer of sewing patterns too. Definitely will water the garden – front and back. “Jet” setting to clean the birdbath and scare the rabbits. “Shower” setting for everything else.
Hoo-et. Hoo. Hoo. I stood under the ficus and peered up, hoping to catch sight of the bird as if to do so would confirm some holy structure of the world and restore all manner of broken things.
Context: Written 6/11/26 the day after we arrived in Los Angeles. In December of last year, we flew Danny out and met at LAX and spent many days together at my brother’s.
Prompt: “It was supposed to be fun…”
Retirement was supposed to be fun, or at least fun–adjacent. Relaxing, self-paced, marked only by travel complications and joint pain.
Not this.
It was supposed to be a time to clean out attic and garage, tend the garden, meet up with friends for a matinee.
Not this.
This time was supposed to be anticipatory in two directions — death, yes death, ahead on one side, an unavoidable tally of years but birth on the other, grandchildren, babies coming into the world.
Not this.
We flew over Colorado and I cried. We flew over the Nevada desert and I looked out the window wondering if he’d looked at the same on his last flight west. (His last flight west).
We landed at LAX. I held back tears at baggage claim because the last time I waited for a bag, we were also waiting for Danny’s flight to land. I cried on the way to the Uber pick up area — just folded like a hinge, put my head on my bag near the handle, and cried. Ken didn’t notice. He was so intent on getting to the pick up area which is, I swear, a mile from the terminal.
Later, we picked up Danny’s car from his brother’s and I cried. I sat on the seat where we’d found the box of bullets, an impossible recollection. I looked at the dusty dashboard and asserted, “Danny wouldn’t have let his car get this dirty.” We agreed on that point.
Now, the rejiggering retrospective includes highlights of a long and slow retreat. Did we even talk in the backyard that time, I wonder? Did we talk during that meal or that walk? My memory is poor, but my son’s silences grew to be pretty constant, epic even.
I write letters to Danny almost every day now. Yesterday I asked, “What happened to that joyfully kinetic, friend-loving guy?” Always there’d been fear and panic, doubt and worry, but always that negativity had been braided with the antics and cheer of an outgoing affectionate imp. Where did he go?
And now I recall a visit ago, let’s call it a penultimate visit (a penultimate visit), asking this very question “You’re so tamped down, Danny. Where did that more cheerful guy go?”
There was no answer. He had no answer.
The “what-if’s” take a break for a week and then storm back with a fury.
What if early on I pulled him out of the public schools? Or what if later on, I’d temporarily moved to Boulder to arrange proper psychiatric care? What else did I have to do?
All the interventions were so incremental, band-aids or suggestions of help, not lasting, meaningful help. Why didn’t I treat the situation years ago as a full-blown life or death crisis, which it was. It always was, as it turns out, a life or death crisis.
Reminiscing was supposed to be, if not fun then at least marked by a bittersweet nostalgia – an annoying echo of a Raffi song or a shrug of a memory at being beyond tired but going to Drumlin Farm anyway.
Not this.
Every counter and table is now covered with nails pointed upward ready to wound. Every floor is puddled with black grease ready to cause a slip and a fall. Every shelf is loaded with regret. Dodging the dangers makes one tired. There are retreats, but no actual respite and if I’m to believe half of what I read, there never will be. There is no getting over this. There’s no getting around this, this loss, this grief. Ever.
Updateon visit: California weather does not disappoint. Billy is doing well. Lila is fine too except for a prolonged panic attack yesterday when a neighbor’s shrill and piercing alarm went on for hours. Poor thing. We finally gave her a trazadone.
I’m so grateful that I was here in this sports-loving household the night of the Knicks game because it meant I watched every minute of it. Wow!
To just see the comeback in the final quarter would’ve meant so much less without weathering the quarters where the Knicks were losing by a lot.
Also of course we watched the first U.S. Men’s soccer game which as it turns out was played here in LA. Also a gratifying win.
Today? Cary and his girlfriend visit. I’ve already made cold cucumber soup.
And perhaps, a dip in the pool!
La Brea Tar Pits, December 2025Escape Room, December 2025
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.
