Author Archives: Deanna

I'm a creative problem solver, a student of life, and a teacher at heart. Over the years, I've come to realize that being a writer is more than what I do. It's who I am. The process of writing (which involves constant rewriting) has taught me to trust in myself, my intuition, and inner wisdom. After my son's death, writing gave me a reason to not give up but to keep going. In sharing my stories, I hope to inspire you, the reader, to find your reason to not give up but to keep going too.

Grief grabbed me again

5 minute read

For the first few months after Sam’s death, I suffered stabbing headaches in and around my eyes. 

“Narrow-angle glaucoma,” the ophthalmologist said. “Yours is the worst I’ve seen.” 

I wondered if the pain was from not crying. I didn’t ask. The question sounded ridiculous in my head: My son, he’s gone, and it hurts when I cry, so I wonder, did this happen, this buildup—of tears?—because I’ve been stopping myself from crying? Suppressing grief, like pruning branches, I’ve learned, only causes it to mushroom.

(an excerpt from Willower: Rewriting Life After Unimaginable Loss: Chapter 8. Grieving)

It’s been over eighteen years since my little boy died. So I wasn’t expecting this.

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life lessons my mother sent me

3 minute read

this newspaper clipping

A FEW DAYS AGO, I mentioned I was tackling the huge project of scanning (digitizing) all my photos (and other mementos), and backing them up box by box. Well…

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saving the past: scanning photos and memories

5 minute read

For months now, I haven’t felt like blogging. I write every day. Privately. Nothing I feel like sharing or showing to anyone.

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here, still

1 minute read

Sam,

I’m still here.

I’m still counting moons: 223 since you’ve been gone. Eighteen years—two of your lifetimes! How can this be?  

Too much time has passed, I know, for me to hope you might still one morning come padding out of your bedroom, smiling at me as if nothing happened. 

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Another birthday

2 minute read

Morning. I am here, sitting outside meditating, eyes closed, feeling the sun on my face, rising. Imagining, for a few minutes, that it’s him shining on me, in me. 

It’s your birthday today, sweet son of mine.

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Discover the Art That Speaks to Your Heart

3 minute read

the heart wants art

I didn’t know that the Mona Lisa painting became popular after it was stolen. Talk about absence making the heart grow fonder!

We often don’t realize the impact art can have on our hearts.

Art, in any form, can guide and motivate and inspire us.

So . . .

What art inspires you?

What speaks to your heart?

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what to do with those sad gone thoughts: write

2 minute read

longing for those who are gone

JANUARY 28, twelve years ago today, was the day Rebecca decided would be her last. And I’m missing her, my longtime and loving friend.

A few years back, I wrote this. This morning, while thinking about what day it is, I read it again, grateful to have written about and to her.

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remembering my dad

3 minute read

(👆In the photo: my father and me heading into my grandmother’s house in Miami, circa 1967.)

in the safe gray zone

He died seventeen years ago today. And, as Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that.” 

I don’t feel sad or wistful. I’m like a wheat field, waves of beige sameness. Neutral, undisturbed, bending with the wind.

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start journaling and strengthen your writing muscles

7 minute read

“You don’t have to be a writer to be a journaler, but journal keeping will make you a writer anyway.” 

— Robert Moss

what is journal writing?

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from drafts to done: building a habit of finishing your writing

4 minute read

What we practice becomes permanent.

– Gabriela Pereira, author, speaker, and founder of DIYMFA.com

Ouch. That line pinched me in the arm the other day when I was listening to DIYMFA podcast, episode 470, Draft Zero.  

Continue reading “from drafts to done: building a habit of finishing your writing”