Grief Gifts The Okawville Book Club met last Sunday for our yearly post-Christmas party.  It was a wonderful afternoon of fellowship.  The book we’d read was The 13th Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle, a real-life story that juxtaposes the frailty of the human spirit with how resilient it can be.  One of […]

I was shy as a child, very quiet. I found my voice as I grew and realized I liked meeting new people and finding out about them.  As I advanced in my career at Illinois Power, mine was usually the only female voice in the room, so I felt I needed to speak up and […]

This week at St. Peter’s UCC Church in Okawville Pastor Jeff’s message was about the tax collector Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to get a better view of Jesus, to get a different perspective.  Pastor Jeff incorporated that idea of getting a different perspective into Children’s Time, when all the little ones come up for […]

Our granddaughter, Quinn, has been with Bill and I this week.  She is three and just precious, precocious, and stubborn.  Much like her mom was at that age. We went boating Tuesday and Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to take her on the tube for a ride behind the boat.  They were […]

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 […]