Expressions of Grief: The Universe's Plans

Late the other night I stepped out into the desert night, stared up and took a deep breath as tears ran down my face. I looked into the darkness and tried to think about the last time my wife and I stargazed before her cancer diagnosis. Then I started thinking about an incredibly stupid and insensitive comment that was directed my way about “how the universe has plans.”

What about my wife's plans? Plans to continue to teach, to be with her daughter, to travel and to create more books with me. Plans for all the moments big, small, and ordinary. Plans to love and be loved. Plans to live a full life.

You are telling me that my beautiful and sweet wife was singled out in all the vastness that is the universe so she could suffer and die in my arms from a horrible disease like cancer because the “universe has plans?”

If that is the case, the universe is a dark place indeed.

Expressions of Grief: Hearts & Brains

Hearts and brains -- in the game of life it takes both of them to make humans, well, human. Unfortunately, I have found along my path in life that there are people who, sadly, either lost a few cards along the way, or were never given a full deck to play with.

Expressions of Grief: Some days are like this...

I hate this "journey" I'm on. I should be drawing silly cartoons, painting landscapes, or just sculpting something for the sake of it. But here I am again, in a dark place. Something brought back a flashback of one the numerous times I rushed my wife to the ER because of some complication due to her cancer and/or cancer treatment. Being a cancer caregiver was hell. Watching my wife suffer and die in my arms from a horrible, but preventable cancer was/is total hell.

Expressions of Grief: Life and a Ladybug

While sitting outside staring at a cloudless azure sky, feeling hopelessly blue while thinking of my beloved late wife and what could have been on a day such as today, a ladybug alighted on my shoe. My thoughts turned to the wonder, beauty, fragility, and brevity of life -- and love. And how many people just don't f@#$#! get it.