When I first started this story in my head, it was based on my experience caring for two aging parents  during COVID. The whole premise was framed around all the help you need and receive when caring for aging parents, hence….comfort food. And the dying part was the dying part…the morphine and the death rattle and the endless waiting for the angels to come get them. Those things did happen for our family. Both my parents died 4 months apart in 2021 with hospice care at home with us. That story was going to be so helpful for all the menopausal women out there taking care of their own family and their parents and probably their in-laws too.

But then my typical life cycle story of dying parents and the stressful season of sandwich care giving for teens and the elderly was eclipsed by two other issues: mental illness and suicide. So now this is a different story of grief and recovery. My husband of 26 years, Erik, walked out of our house on a cold December Sunday morning last year and died by suicide. And now the comfort food is not the same as the warm casseroles and peace lilies that comforted me when my parents died. No one knows the “right way” to nurture the broken souls left behind by suicide. Maybe because there is no road map for these things and there is no commonality to share the experience.

But the dying part, surprisingly, is still just the dying part. Because no matter how someone dies, surrounded by angels and family singing old Methodist hymns or surrounded by paramedics doing CPR on the floor of the garage, it all ends the same way. Your loved one is gone. 

The stories shared on this blog are basically vignettes of the best of humanity and maybe the lessons learned from the imperfect side of our humanity. Afterall, there is no roadmap for navigating complex grief and trauma. Much of my navigation to this point has been anchored on the people and places that have graced my world and brought color back to my life.

I hope these stories are helpful and relatable and that someone else can find navigation skills in them too. The dying part doesn’t change much, it was horrible, unforgettable, and life changing. May these vignettes provide comfort food. For that is something that you really can control. And may the comfort food you offer to yourself and others as you move through this unpredictable world also be life changing and unforgettable.