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I stared at my blank computer screen, the curser blinking rhythmically; beckoning me to write.  Anything. Something.  I was at a complete loss for words.   

I am trying to compose an email to a total stranger, a woman in Seattle. Her name is Catherine and, there’s no other way to put this:  she is walking through the gates of Hell. 

Catherine’s fiancé, at the age of 40, is dying from a metastatic cancer. He has weeks to live. My friend, Sam is Catherine’s brother’s best friend.  Sam asked me to reach out to Catherine, thinking it might help her to hear from another woman who understands what she’s going through.  Sam told me her family doesn’t know what to say, do or how to help anymore.  Two years ago, Catherine lost her only daughter to multiple sclerosis.  It was an unimaginable loss. And now, just as she has found a love she thought could last, Catherine is about to lose him too. 

Even though Catherine and I have never met, I feel as though I know her intimately; how she feels, her fears and fragile hopes.  I know her exhaustion.  Do I take

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“I’m sorry, Mama,” my 7-year-old daughter, Chloe said as she handed me a card she had made from yellow construction paper.  “I made this for you.”

 

All over its front, she had drawn red flowers and hearts.  I could see inside the fold, her thoughts penciled out in crooked sentences.  Chloe looked forlorn and sad, as though she knew she had made a big mistake.

 

Moments earlier, Chloe had been bouncing up and d

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I’ve learned something about silence: it’s noisier than I thought.

Every day for the past few months, I’ve awakened in the chilly pre-dawn and listened to that deafening silence.  It’s that quiet time before the dog patters in, barking, the cat meows his demand for breakfast and I feel my seven-year-old daughter hurl herself on the bed, chattering about that day’s play dates, homework, and brown bag lunches. These are the daily sounds of my family’s expectations of me—that I will satisfy their appetites and solve their problems. 

But through the din of their sounds and expectations, the silence I am talking about falls upon me like a cloud.  I am being suffocated—paralyzed almost—by the clattering within my head, turning over and over the same questions about who I was, who I am and where the hell am I going now. 

Why is it that after a successful marriage, career and the joy of motherhood that I’m no longer sure of exactly who I am?  Am I the cook? The housekeeper? The babysitter? Or sex kitten when my husband comes home from work? 

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My late husband, Will never cooked for just the two of us. He always seemed perpetually prepared to cook for a crowd.  Even at the crack of dawn.  On a workday.  Each morning, he would fill our giant coffee pot, press the “on” button to make 12 cups of coffee—as if any minute the neighbors might stop by.  At night, he would stir up a stew

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I woke up to a sky of silvery blue and the insistent shouting coming from down the hall. My daughter, Chloe, now almost seven months old, was calling for me, “Mamamama..maMAH! MaMAAAAH!”

I pulled myself out of the downy warmth of my bed and grinned at the sound of her insistent little voice, calling for me.

“Good morning, Chlo-Chlo” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. She was in her purple-footed pajamas sitting up in the middle of her crib. The pale yellow of her room cast a warm glow on her upturned face and I could see she was clearly delighted with herself that her little commanding call produced such quick results! I reached into her crib and pulled her toward me and nuzzled her warm, soft neck. As I held her, Chloe belted out another ‘maMAH!’ for good measure and then she shrieked with laughter. Her dark brown eyes danced with mischief and her little face was bursting with delight.

I was so exhausted from single parenting that I can’t recall the exact moment when Chloe figured out that “Mmmmmamah” would have me running to her side. However, from the day she was born, I mulled over all the milestones I would experien...... [ Read the rest of this story ]

November 26, 2002 is etched like glass into my memory. The weather was crisp, yet uncharacteristically warm for the week before Thanksgiving in Atlanta where I was working as a CNN anchor. I was six months pregnant and had just eaten lunch with a girlfriend from work, shamelessly ordering the burger with fries and hot apple pie for dessert and giggling my excuses that I was eating for two.

After lunch, I recall feeling like a Cheshire cat ready for a nap, as I hugged my girlfriend goodbye and waddled my pregnant self across the blacktop parking lot to slowly ease behind the wheel of my car and take a deep breath. The interior was thick with the scent of leather as the warmth of the bucket seats heated by the noon sun cradled me.

I was so content and happy.

That’s when I saw I had a message on my cell phone and crossed my fingers, hoping it was from my husband, Will.

“Finally!” I said to myself. “I hope he’s got some good news about the toothache he keeps complaining about.” His dentist had finally ordered a biopsy after months of painkillers and antibiotics failed to make a difference. Frankly, Will was becoming depressed...... [ Read the rest of this story ]

“He’s a really interesting guy,” my friend, Diane said, trying to sound all casual about adding a guest for our dinner date in New York City that was supposed to take place in a couple weeks. I was going to be in NYC, working as the substitute anchor for Aaron Brown’s prime time news program, “Newsnight.' 

“What do you mean “interesting”? I asked cautiously. Diane never calls me when I’m at work so when my cell phone rang and I saw her name, I was curious, and then suspicious when I heard the reason for her call.  She was trying to set me up on a blind date.  Frankly, after only a year of grieving my late husband, I didn’t care how “interesting” he might be!  I was not ready to be set up on a blind date! 

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The title papers arrived in a plain white envelope from the tax assessor’s office. It was official: the sunny-yellow brick bungalow I had purchased was mine. I had chosen it because of its quaint character—its white porch overlooking 100-year-old live oak trees and its cozy living room with a fireplace. 

 

I felt it held the promise of a new life—a fresh start—for my daughter, Chloe and me. Five months prior to this, my husband, Will had died after battling a rare sinus cancer. A few weeks later, I gave birth to Chloe. 

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It was a warm October morning in 2003 when I returned to work as an anchor at CNN for the first time since my husband, Will died after being diagnosed with a rare sinus cancer. I’d been away from work for seven months. In that time, I gave birth to my daughter, Chloe, said my final farewells to Will as we held hands through his last breath, and then had to learn to fight the paralyzing fatigue of grief and midnight feedings. 

Will had also worked at CNN, first in the documentary unit and then as the executive producer of the newscast on CNN’s Headline News channel.

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In my 8-year career as a television journalist with CNN, I covered a lot of breaking news about other people’s tragedies— the Columbine school shooting, the wars in the Middle East, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Even still, nothing prepared me for my own breaking news: I was six months pregnant with my daughter, Chloe when I learned my adorable, fun loving husband, Will had a rare, incurable cancer. He died six months later.

 

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