grief - Life on the Road Less Traveled

January 8, 2022

More Joy in Heaven…

This week my old friend, Fr Dave, flipped his car on an icy Michigan road. He was killed instantly. Today Craig and I drove up for the funeral, and I was reminded that at almost exactly the same time last year, we were saying goodbye to Fr Ubald. Both were holy priests in their fifties. In both cases, you could nearly hear heaven resound with “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” The cathedral was packed, with many more watching livestream. Dozens of his brother priests lined the front pews, surrounding his dear mother and sister and family as […]

July 7, 2021

On Gentle Pens and Poison Tongues

Grief does strange things to people. When the heart feels like it has a hole large enough to drive a truck through, it can be easy to lash out at others. Even (and perhaps especially) those who love us most. So when I recently found myself on the receiving end of this kind of toxicity, I had to take a moment and breathe. The temptation was — and is — strong to set the record straight by returning fire for fire. But retaliation does nothing to put out the fire. It merely doubles it. What does it mean to be “strong” in this context? It’s something I’ve […]

February 28, 2009

Family You Don’t Get to Pick

What does it take for an adoptive triad to form a successfully integrated family unit? Is it even possible? I have one friend, who is both a birth mother and an adoptee, who has the gift of a truly integrated extended family. However, I can also point to six other triads I know personally that have not been able to manage this for a variety of reasons, from lack of information about birth parents, to unwillingess of birth parent to have contact, to addiction or mental/emotional stability issues making it impossible to sustain contact. What do you think are the keys to building a healthy (and, hopefully, happy) integrated family?