Tag Archives: grief

The fallow to the harrow/Let me cry

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

I’ve used this face before. It is the careworn defiance face, a self-portrait of the wife of the patient, taken mid-December 2011.  Mark and I had been through hell, and we were so tired. If we’d known how few rivers we … Continue reading →

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Two-Percenters/Finn (again)

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

“…and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home, and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times that you are down to your last two percent…” Finn Butler This week, my sister … Continue reading →

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Exploding St. Paul

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

  I just found out that St. Paul Hospital is coming down. The implosion is set for 8 a.m. tomorrow.  My son wants to drive into Dallas and watch it fall. I’m on the fence. Mark died at St. Paul. … Continue reading →

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All hallows, all saints

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

In my memory banks, there are two November 7ths that I spent with Mark. Our November 7, 1992 wedding, and the last anniversary we had together, in 2011, the day that Mark almost died. (Landmark anniversaries and new theologies) Trauma … Continue reading →

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Prayers of the antagonostics

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

I am scared today God. Slept hard, woke up exhausted, spent, alone. Thank you for the quiet center in this space where you are. I apologize. I am very sorry that it takes a bulldozer, a crane, a trained hostage negotiator, sixteen mules, … Continue reading →

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On the empty next

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

I have no idea how this turned into this and then became this I don’t know what my life will look like in a few short months when the boys head off to college. I don’t remember what it’s like to … Continue reading →

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Cork, popped

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

In November 2014, I wrote about the bottle of champagne that was to be opened when Mark was finished with treatments, to celebrate life without cancer.  (So much for the power of cheap liquor.) The bottle lurked in the back … Continue reading →

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Operating instructions

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

The moment came in the dying, then in being seated with the dead. Before you ever found your footing, the quilt was laid across your shoulders. The heft of it kept you grounded, so much so that in the first … Continue reading →

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Lent by slogans

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

Easy Does It. The best way for me to screw up Lent is to cram too much into it. First Things First. Last night, I deactivated my Facebook account. No matter how I’ve tried to control how much time I … Continue reading →

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27 January 2015

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood

On January 27, 1964, the State of Texas got a little bit funkier, a whole lot funnier, and infinitely kinder as Mark Allen Daves made his debut in El Paso. Mark’s preferred birthday was small and intimate. He usually wanted … Continue reading →

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