Healing from Loss: Finding Myself, My Work

 “Mom, I locked my key in the car. Can you do me a favor?” my son calls me on my cell phone.

I am about to dive into a chocolate cake and two bottles of aged port with friends. We are twelve miles north of Ithaca. I will have to go home first to find his spare keys before I drive to the downtown restaurant where he is stuck.

“I’ll be right there,” I say. Then I drive the dark empty country roads and the wet city streets reflecting store lights, singing “I’m being followed by a Moon Shadow.” That’s how much I want to be needed, to be doing something, to have a goal and have work.

I’m addicted to working.

But no one wants to hire a photo-shopper, another writer, an out-loud reader, or someone who will drop everything to rescue a bad situation. It’s time to get creative. To remedy the lack of a job, get out of the house, and keep my self-esteem I have started to write a semimonthly column called Up and Out for a small online newsletter, www.tinytowntimes.com. If you enjoy my writing please check it out. Except for this first introduction, it will be an exploration of the overlooked and under-appreciated gems to be found in a tiny town like Ithaca, New York.

So now I’m wearing a new hat. Actually it’s an old one that belonged to my daughter. But it fits. If it weren’t for her and all her words I found after she died, I would never have discovered my own love for writing.

Sometimes when you lose someone you find someone or something else. I’m finding myself. And all the things I never imagined I could do.