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.

His name, remembered, spoken, and written…

3 minute read

What can I say about today?

April 30, 2026.

Since every day, almost every hour, I think of my beautiful boy, Sam. His name circles my mind, my heart, from back to front, a subtle loop, a recording, a continuous ticker tape, in the background a whirring, clicking, and beeping biotelemetry.

Sam Kassenoff
3/2/98 – 4/30/2007

Today’s not so different from any other day, really. Only a marker in time; nineteen years.

Time keeps on ticking, moving along. Time has taught me how to… It’s dulled my sorrow into a tolerable ache, which I’ve learned to live with and reshape, somehow, into words.

near, even when far away

2 minute read

On your birthday today…

It’s Monday, March 2, your birthday. Oh my gosh, you’re twenty-eight today. I’m sitting here, early morning, outside in the dark, remembering you, my beautiful boy.

You’ll always be my beautiful boy. Though I know you’re older now, larger than life.

Far away.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

sidewalks (3) a theather

2 minute read

finding treasure

Walking, connecting with nature,
picking up something meaningful,
a reminder of us when . . .
or evidence,
a clue—the idea of it,
in the smallest of things, a feather.
Exploring, searching, moving to keep going.
This meditative practice of mine, my morning ritual,
is when I see, in my reverie, how he saw the world.
And as I’m scanning the sidewalk and its edges,
rambling, drifting, daydreaming, thinking of him,
his sweet voice, his curious nature,
I come upon treasure then, a theather.

on reinventing

2 minute read

life

Every single one of us has a completely unique and deeply personal journey that we take on this thing we call life . . . Find the courage to take the wheel and steer it wherever your heart desires.
— Mel Robbins

FOR THE LAST FEW MONTHS, I’ve been feeling like I’m floundering, languishing. Sitting in the passenger’s seat (or some days, the backseat) staring at the weeds, at life, along the soft shoulder as they pass by; instead of taking the wheel, looking forward, and navigating from the driver’s seat.

on walking

1 minute read

walking on

In grief, all we can do is take notes and learn as we go, keep walking through the damage—talk and share and create as we speak—and stay at it, try to make something of it, our loss, and find new meaning in that.
(excerpt from Willower: Rewriting Life After Unimaginable Loss: Chapter 9. Migrating)

without imagination…

3 minute read

a private note

WHENEVER I READ a book, I always find my very own personal takeaway, a sentence or two that stands out to me, seemingly as if the writer meant the message just for me—like a private note. The author may not have even meant for that particular line or two to be one of the story’s takeaways, and therein lies the magic (of words, and reading books).

grieving is hard work

1 minute read

a grief note

Grieving, like writing, is hard work, done mostly in solitude.
Continue reading “grieving is hard work”

sidewalks (2) luna moth

2 minute read

pieces of treasure

LAST WEEK’S POST, sidewalks (1), was the first in what I’m hoping will be a series of short posts (if I can stick to my plan). You don’t have to read sidewalks (1), or look for my upcoming sidewalk posts (each Wednesday), but . . . I really hope you do.

sidewalks (1)

4 minute read

all the sidewalks

The word sidewalk appears thirty times in my book Willower.

The line I love you more than all the sidewalks in the world appears nine times.

The first time I heard this was when Sam, as a toddler, said it to me. It stayed with me. It was a funny thing to hear, an unusual measurement to use—sidewalks? But then, the sidewalk was our world; where we spent most of our time collecting acorns, bugs, sticks, stones . . .

lipstick

4 minute read

graped-up

It’s the little things.

SOMETIMES, it’s the littlest, most ridiculous, almost unnoticeable things that help me to keep going:

receiving an unexpected text from an old friend;

watching a tiny lizard lapping water from a drop on the patio floor;

finding that perfect shade of lip color.

What can I say about today?

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On your birthday today…

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this newspaper clipping

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the heart wants art

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longing for those who are gone

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in the safe gray zone

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what is journal writing?

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finding treasure

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life

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walking on

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a private note

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a grief note

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pieces of treasure

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all the sidewalks

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graped-up

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