10/23/2026
I’ve been cleaning out my father’s barn, and some days I’m sorting through as many feelings as belongings.
Grief. Love. Anger. Resentment.
All living in the same place. All belonging to me.
I can miss my father and be angry about what was left for us to handle. I can treasure something he kept and feel overwhelmed by everything he couldn’t let go of. I can cry over a memory, then feel frustrated by the next pile waiting for me.
For the first five days, I cried every single day. There has also been exhaustion, laughter, and the occasional small discovery that stops me in my tracks.
That’s something grief keeps teaching me: loving someone doesn’t mean every feeling we have about them is easy. Being angry doesn’t mean we love them any less.
When I wrote He Called Me Mom: What Remains After the Unthinkable, I was writing about the loss of my nephew, who called me Mom, and the love that continues after someone dies.
Now, sorting through my father’s belongings, I’m experiencing another part of that complicated relationship between loss and love.
What remains can comfort us. It can hurt. Sometimes it leaves us with work we never wanted and feelings we don’t quite know what to do with.
If you’ve ever felt guilty for being angry with someone you’re grieving, I hope you’ll give yourself a little room to feel it.
You can love them. You can miss them. You can resent what you’re carrying.
There is room for all of it. ❤️
He Called Me Mom: What Remains After the Unthinkable — for anyone finding their way through the complicated, deeply human experience of grief.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H7CGVNSM
