My husband, Bill, and I are driving home from northern Illinois as I write this.  Our son and daughter in law just had a baby girl and we had the privilege of meeting her minutes after she made her entrance to this world.  She is so precious, the best blessing in life. On Sunday we […]

Ever since I attended the Washington County Health Department’s “Women’s Night Out” in January 2018, where the topic was “The Opioid Crisis in Washington County, IL”, I had the stirrings of a book on addiction and loss.  The number of deaths from opioid overdose was shocking to me, I had no idea it was impacting […]

Over the past weekend, we celebrated Father’s Day with my husband and sons and uncles and friends that are fathers.  We ate barbecue and played kickball and opened home-made gifts and gave presents to honor them.  I hope your weekend was as wonderful. In the back of my mind on the holiday, though, was my […]

This past Sunday my church, St. Peter’s UCC in Okawville, IL celebrated our Women of the Church banquet.  Years ago, it was called the Mother-Daughter banquet.  It changed because it was realized that many women didn’t have daughters, many women didn’t have their mother’s any longer, but all women have those that are special and […]

In the last Heartlinks Grief Reflections blog post, I wrote about being happy Spring had finally arrived.  Driving through the snow in northern Illinois this weekend, I think I may have been premature in that pronouncement!  But, snow or not, Easter will be here in a few days. Easter doesn’t usually come to mind as […]

Spring is finally here!  The sun feels warmer.  The bulbs by my mailbox are just pushing up their tender leaves and the daffodils are ready to pop open.  Many of us feel a general renewal as spring unfolds, a hopefulness as the earth reawakens. For those of us grieving, it may be hard to embrace […]

Valentine’s Day is here. It is a holiday of hearts, flowers, chocolate, and gifts. Bill and I were in Costco today and the chocolate covered strawberries and flowers were everywhere. It is a holiday of love, love, love.  It’s grown from a holiday celebrated just between those in love, to one where we celebrate with […]

As a change management consultant companies hired me to bring new ideas and business practices to their organizations and then help them implement those changes.  “Don’t tell me what you will hope to do, tell me what you will do,” I’d admonish managers who were often struggling with the changes proposed.  Hoping or trying to […]

A whole year has passed.  It hit me as I was thinking about what to share with you this week, that I’ve been writing this blog for a whole year.  One of my first blog posts for Grief Reflections was around Christmas last year from the book I authored, We Lost Her, and how our […]

An interruption by definition is an interference, a disturbance. It can be a break, a pause or a gap. In my many years working at the regional electric company, it meant a loss of electric service and hard work ahead to restore service. That’s what I still think of first when I hear the word […]