Greetings and Welcome!

The purpose of this blog is to expand upon my lifelong love affair with words. I believe that every person has, at one point in their life, been given words of advice, of comfort, of inspiration, and often times a combination of the three.

In the last few years I’ve developed an obsession with wanting to know what these words are for other people. What these words mean to the individual and their story.

The goal of this blog is to find the story behind other people’s words and what they mean to them, and why.

My words:

My story begins in the days (or possibly even hours) after my dad passed away in September of 2010. He’d been battling a heart problem for almost exactly ten years, with his health declining rapidly in the later years. It was no shock when I got the phone call from my sister with the words “dad’s gone.”

I don’t remember many of the details from the days between his passing and his funeral. I remember he had no life insurance. I remember worrying how my mom would live without his income. I remember so much food being left at the house. I remember my coworkers sent me an edible arrangement. I remember my cousins and aunts and uncles cleaning our house.

I remember staying up almost all night on the day he died, drinking and laughing and reminiscing. I remember so many sympathy cards. I remember people I casually knew coming to the funeral.

It was a strange time; I felt the most extreme sorrow I’d ever experienced combined with the most extreme flow of love and generosity I’d ever experienced.

At one point during this bizarre time, my brother in law told me that this kind of loss was hard; everyone knows that. It’s hard to see past the immediate pain and sadness you feel, but it’s not always going to be this hard. In the beginning, you’ll think of him and only see and feel what you’ve lost and you’ll cry. But one day, you’ll think of him, of something funny he said or did and you’ll smile or maybe even laugh. As time goes on, the moments that make you smile will happen more and the moments that make you sad will happen less.

It’s been almost seven years since those words were spoken to me and I can say, without a doubt, they’re 100% true. I can bring my dad up in casual conversation and, the majority of the time, not become a blubbering mess. But there are still (fairly rare these days) times (like as I write this) when I remember the loss and feel sad.

Any time I know someone experiencing a loss, I pass these words along in hopes they’ll give others the same sense of comfort that they gave me. Perhaps now that you’ve read them, they’ll provide some form of comfort for you.

So that’s my story. I want to hear yours, or your friend’s, or your father’s brother’s nephew’s former roommate’s. Please reach out to me if you’d like to set up time to talk and share your story. Happy to keep it anonymous if you wish.

Thanks for reading,

Krissy