Yes You Can: the Podcast

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about my own darkness on this blog: shadowy words pouring out of me while the words Yes You Can travelled out of my mouth. Yes You Can has been my meditation, my mantra, my guiding truth. Hokey? Maybe. True? Yes. I’ve been healing, and I’ve been talking, and I’ve […]

Still here

I am not well. It’s taken awhile to circle back around to these words- like they’ve been jumbled in my brain and heart and body, tangled in my thoughts. Like alphabet soup. Yesterday the four words found each other and one by one appeared side by side. I am not well. I’ve written about my […]

I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

The sound of my home was Van Morrison, Chantal Kreviazuk, borscht bubbling on the stove, and my mother’s sewing machine whirring away. It was the sound of the trains crashing together at the yards underneath the Arlington Street bridge, a crash so loud that their noise reverberated four blocks away to 813 Flora Avenue. I […]

My own story

A few days before Bell’s annual campaign to talk about mental health, I find myself blinking back tears after plopping down at my desk, Tim Hortons lunch in front of me that I knew I wouldn’t eat and sorels dripping melted snow onto my carpet. I felt it coming all morning, from the moment I […]

Dear Mom

Dear Mom. Today I walked into my house with the snow swirling at my back and five broken bags of groceries and three dogs barking and not enough weight on my body and I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could and I still feel it in my throat now when I swallow. I screamed […]

Pressing Continue

Disclaimer: this post may be a trigger to some. If you are having thoughts of ending your life, please call the 24 hr crisis line at 1-877-435-7170 or visit reasontolive.ca The day after my Mother passed away with my brother and I by her side, we met my father for lunch. I didn’t want to go […]

2016

It’s not always a big event or holiday that brings on the ache of missing her; it’s the small moments. The laugh aloud idiosyncrasies of everyday life that still make me grab my phone to text her and tell her. Wanting to send her a photo of @pinkyinablanket and I cuddling, or her in […]

March 10.

I took this photo right before my mom got her “be brave” tattoo just over a year ago. Seems like forever, and yesterday. I love how brave she was- unflinching at the pain that paled in comparison to what she was going through. I also love that I shared the experience with her and caught […]

Talking About Suicide.

And I want it, I want my life so bad I’m doing everything I can Then another one bites the dust It’s hard to lose a chosen one You did not break me I’m still fighting for peace Well, I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart, But your blade—it might be too sharp I […]

After & the Anger.

“Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.” – Cheryl Strayed My mother used to say that suicide was the most selfish thing a person could ever do. I write “used to say” intentionally- she said it more than once. Yes, I realize that sounds strange… Why would someone talk about death that […]

Broken Open

The grief diaries