When I announced Ruby’s passing in December, I promised you that I would eventually write about my experience during the last four months of her life, from diagnosis to caring for her through her illness, to having to let her go.

I decided to title this four-part series “Ruby’s Last Journey.” My own journey through grief, which is, of course, a large part of all of this, is ongoing. I suspect I will inhabit planet grief for quite some time as I try to move forward without my little girl. Life goes on, but the pain of missing her hasn’t really softened all that much over the last two months.

Writing this series was hard. In the past, writing about losses helped me heal. That doesn’t seem to be the case this time. I know in time, I’ll come to terms with this loss, like I have with all my other losses. The reality is that we never get “over” a loss, nor should we want to. Loss changes us. The best we can hope for is that in the end, it changes us for the better. Continue Reading