Noah Miesch age 15

September Son

Yesterday, I was riding my bike and thought about you, Noah. There are tiny triggers every day that cause me to pause and remember you. Sometimes it’s seeing a school bus rambling down the road, or I'll hear a certain song or a spoken word that makes me smile about our life together. Other times the mulling is more intentional. I think of you hard when I’m in your old bedroom. Lately, I’ve...

Birthday. Not Birthday.

I wouldn't want to do the math wrong and make a mistake about how old he'd be today, so I pull up the calculator on my laptop just to make sure. Noah was born on September 23, 1988 so today he would be 28 years old. Without ritual it's hard for me to remember his exact age. When you take away the cake, singing, presents, dinner out and the old Scooby Doo birthday banner; the marking of another...

Odd Day, Even Year

Like a birthday, wedding anniversary or any important date, the anniversary of Noah's death is one we note. It's on my electronic calendar as a recurring date, The Day Noah Died, as if I really need reminding. It is on our wall photo calendar with a picture of him and the words, Noah's Day on February 27. He died in 2006, an even year just after the end of the winter Olympics in Torino. Eight...

The Signs

I've always been open to signs, you know, like an answer to a meaningful question via the appearance of a rainbow, a bird crossing my path or something else that tells me what I need to know.  Though I'm open to signs, I can't think of a time when I actually had a meaningful sign. Until today. I found this rock, or chunk or concrete while I was running. I picked it up and ran home with it in my...

Tolerance of Grief

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of Noah's death. I admit, the pain of his loss isn't as acute as it was seven years ago. But still, when I think of him, I can feel the tightness in my throat and my eyes start to burn. And I think about him every single day. That's the reality of this kind of loss. The grief hangs on and on. It's become a part of me. As much as I am a writer, a runner, a...

Poking the Wound

One of my classmates in my online writing class mentioned a book she thought I'd like to read, Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon and I'm pleased that she did. The book is about parents, children and how their identities are wrapped around one another. His focus is on parents with children who are not "vertical"or similar to their parents. He writes about kids who are deaf, dwarfs, have autism,...

Writer, Reporter or Author?

Earlier this week I took PTO from work and dedicated much to the day to watching a thunderstorm roll in from Lake Michigan and writing/re-writing parts of my memoir. As it thundered and rained, I thought about being at home to write and how much pleasure having uninterrupted time to write gives me. I'm lucky though, I write for a living in the field of public relations. I write profiles of...