In Grief We Are Not Alone

My siblings and I inherited our parents' love of music—not just listening but the proclivity for curating it, building playlists that become the backdrop of our lives. We were discouraged from singing along, though. My brother John would catch us joining the radio in the car and ask pointedly, "Who sings this song?" The answer was always the artist, to which he'd reply, "Let's keep it that way." His veto became a running joke, a family truth.

My sister, a teacher, plays creative and soothing music for her students during off moments before class or at breaks. Students return years later—a decade, sometimes more—and tell her they still remember songs from her classroom, how those melodies became woven into their memories. 

Aden and I work on joint Spotify playlists together. While hiking in Banff, she introduced me to Alex Warren's song "Carry You Home," and that song became a bridge between us—a shared conversation without words. Last night Aden and Daniel accompanied me to see Alex Warren at Red Rocks, the greatest natural amphitheater in the world.

Warren became truly famous last year when his song "Ordinary" exploded on BookTok and then the radio. At Red Rocks, his voice was superb, clear and raw—the kind of voice that makes you believe every word. The sold-out auditorium sang along with every lyric, from upbeat and inspiring to melancholy, haunting lyrics of loss. Parents sat with their children, teenagers with friends. No pot in the air—a first for me at Red Rocks—just wholesome music with an edge. Concert tee shirts read "Need money for ~~therapy~~ Alex Warren tix," a joke the singer tells on himself.

The night's most poignant moment came when Warren left the main stage for a B stage near our seats. He described his father's death when Warren was nine, how his mother and siblings were left bereft, how he carried that grief alone for a long time. Then he asked the crowd a simple question: "Raise a hand if you've ever lost someone."

Thousands of hands rose into the darkness—a stunning yet unsurprising array. "We are not alone," he said. "And as long as we talk about them and keep their memory alive, they will not die a second time."

He then sang "Eternity," and the words echoed into the canyon as his voice was joined by 9,000 others:

But it feels like an eternity / Since I had you here with me / Since I had to learn to be / Someone you don't know

To be with you in paradise / What I wouldn't sacrifice / Why'd you have to chase the light / Somewhere I can't go?

Tears blurred our view of the stage and the Denver skyline beyond it. I was thinking of Dad—his love of music, his ear for a false note, his presence in these moments when his physical form couldn't be there. I found myself hoping that some part of his spirit was listening, that he could hear this crowd of strangers singing about loss and longing and the stubbornness of love that refuses to disappear. There were no false notes. He would have loved it.

Myriad cellphone lights bloomed across the amphitheater like earthbound stars, each one a person holding their own grief while singing someone else's. The music and emotion wove through the crowd, threading us together—strangers made kin by the simple fact of loss, by the courage it takes to sit in a stone bowl under the stars and say yes, I remember, I miss them, I'm still here.

This is what music does. It resurrects the dead in our hearts. It tells us we're not alone. It gives voice to what we cannot say ourselves—and in hearing it, we find we're surrounded by thousands of others saying the same thing.

I'll add another Alex Warren song to my 2026 playlist. Not to commemorate the evening, though it will do that, reinforcing a bond with my kids. But because music is how we keep people alive. It's how we keep talking about them. It's how we refuse to let them die a second time.

That's Going in the Blog!

We sat in the bleachers at CU's Folsom Field on Memorial Day, watching elite female runners stream into the stadium to finish their 10K race. Around us, "citizen's race" athletes—Rob, Aden, William, and I among them—leaped to our feet, clapping and stomping on the metal stands until the roar became a thunderous roll of applause that seemed to lift the runners across the finish line. They waved to the crowd, moving impossibly fast—so much faster than we'd just jogged the 10K course of the Boulder Bolder. I told my kids I had chills, and William grinned. "That's going in the blog!"

I've been writing "Wild Specific Tangent" since 2009, when Aden was eight, William six, and Daniel three The kids read my posts occasionally, sometimes offering feedback when I send a link requesting it, but mostly they maintain that typical child distance from a parent's work. When I told William I'd write about both the moment at Folsom Field and his comment, he simply grinned. "You should," he said.

The kids have an intuitive feel for what will strike me as worth keeping. They sense it faster than I do as I process and discard ideas throughout the week—some too personal, some too obvious, many too political. They know what matters. They know what should stay.

I'm toying with compiling a second book of my favorite entries. The first volume spanned seven years (2009-2017). We're nine years down the road now, and I'm either overdue or the interest in rewriting and sorting has simply expired. Would it matter if I put my musings on paper, or should they just live in the wilds of the internet, accumulating like digital dust? The short accounts might matter to my kids someday when I can no longer tell them our family stories, when my memory fails and I can't retrieve the odd congratulatory moment. (My days of jogging a 10K are coming to an end sooner rather than later.)

But this day deserves capturing. Memorial Day with all of us moving together—William bobbing and weaving out of our walk-jog rhythm to finish in 8:30 miles while Rob led the way for Aden and me, breaking into a jog each time my hips, knees, and ankles persuaded me we could manage it. Watching the elite runners consume the course in a third of our time, then the sounds of "Star Spangled Banner" drifting across the field, the military flyover sharp and precise overhead, the salute that made my eyes wet as I thought of Dad. A day heavy with meaning—Rob recovering from his surgery, all of us fit enough to run six miles together, free snacks and a jot of patriotism to complete the afternoon.

A day that shouldn't dissolve into the endless parade of ordinary days. William was right. It belongs in the blog—not because it's momentous, but because it's real. Because someday when the details fade, I'll want to remember the exact cadence of our running together, the sound of that metal bleacher roar, the way grief and gratitude tangled together on a field honoring the dead. Because my children will want to remember what it felt like to move through the world with their parents, to stop for a moment and say this matters, capture this, don't let it disappear.

Perhaps that's what these seventeen years of writing have become—not a record of accomplishments or epiphanies, but evidence of a life lived, witnessed, held. Permission to say: this moment, this day, this conversation with my son—it all counts.

Unforgettable

"Unforgettable / In every way

In every way / And forevermore

That's how you'll stay

That's why, darling / It's incredible

That someone so unforgettable

Thinks that I am / Unforgettable too."

- "Unforgettable" song and lyrics by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole

Decades ago, when I lived and worked in San Francisco,  my father took me to a Natalie Cole concert. I remember the pride of arriving straight from work in my dressy work-to-evening outfit, meeting Dad in his crisp suit and tie—his date for the evening. What pierces me still: the moment Natalie Cole sang alongside her father's recorded voice in "Unforgettable," an otherworldly duet that captured something essential about fathers and daughters, time and loss. Dad and I both choked down tears, humming along to the achingly beautiful lyrics.

This memory surfaced unexpectedly during my Tuesday acupuncture appointment with Deyba. Before the session began, I confessed that my post-competition high from Nationals had collapsed into emptiness—what goal, what adventure would come next? Some part of me seeks validation through external actions, performances, life-changing events. She challenged me to redefine myself not as someone who hunts for validation but as someone who shines in place.

Hard for me, I explained. I've spent years feeling lesser than people who swim faster, write better, radiate confidence. I told Deyba about my surprise when a college classmate and teammate recognized me thirty-five years later—I don't remember contributing much to the team during my two years at Harvard.

"Why are you surprised?" she asked. "I will never forget you. Your swimmers will never forget you. You are unforgettable."

Tears erupted without warning, an awkward situation when you're flat on your back with acupuncture needles sprouting from forehead and temples. Deyba smiled and swiped at my face with tissues as tears kept carving new tracks down my cheeks.

"You must have said the magic words," I managed, smiling weakly.

"I'm just repeating what your higher self wants you to hear," she said, finishing her needle placement with one last pass of the tissues.

Near the end of my session—now prone, needles removed—Deyba began humming the song. She started telling me about a memory she had of a Natalie Cole concert, a magical father-daughter duet that moved her. Emotions swelled as I pictured Dad in his impeccable suit and tie.

"I was there too," I said.

At least gravity could help with the tears this time.

---

The word "unforgettable" carries weight we rarely claim for ourselves. We're quick to award it to others—the accomplished, the famous, the obviously remarkable—while dismissing our own presence as forgettable, our contributions as minor. But we leave marks deeper than we know. The college teammate who remembered me across decades. The swimmers I coach who (I hope) will carry something of our time together forward. My father, gone now six years, who still reaches me through a song I heard in a darkened concert hall when I was young and he was vital and neither of us knew what the future would hold.

You are unforgettable too. Not because of what you achieve or perform or accomplish, but because of who you are to the people who know you—the ones who will hum your song long after you've stopped singing it yourself.

Hummingbirds Return and Yardwork

Every year the hummingbirds return with their high-pitched trills and iridescent wings blurring into invisibility. I delight in watching them dive-bomb the flowering crabapple trees, then swoop over tulips and daffodils thrust up through warming soil. Buds swell on bare branches, days stretch longer, light lingers past dinner. What I don't savor is the overwhelming assault of yard cleanup: restoring mulch that's scattered or decomposed, raking tons of rusty pine needles, coaxing the drip irrigation back to life, praying for perennials to emerge after a punishing dry winter.

When Rob and I bought this house nearly twenty-two years ago, the previous owners had just re-landscaped the backyard. The shrubs stood trim and compact, rose bushes exploded in crimson blooms, mulch nestled obediently inside crisp brick boundaries. We installed a swing set and sandbox and tried to keep pace with the seasons' demands, but with three small children pulling us in every direction, we surrendered ground each year. After a decade in the house, the backyard had morphed into something from The Secret Garden—rose bushes erupting in thorny chaos before dying back, grass invading the margins, mulch vanishing into soil.

After abandoning hope of restoration—despite one ambitious swap of swing set for trampoline—we hired Aden and her college friend to resurrect some semblance of order in the areas nearest the house. We celebrated when brick borders reemerged from their grassy graves, when rocks in the landscaping beat back the encroaching turf. Inspired, we hired another crew to tackle the perimeter. Though we've lost the rose bushes and several cottonwood trees to drought and neglect, our yard now somewhat echoes its former glory.

Only somewhat because we live in drought, and without moisture to revive the bluegrass, our pine trees and their gnarled, serpentine roots have conquered the lawn. We're allowed to water just two days per week—Wednesday and Saturday—and I'm eyeing xeriscaping for the backyard like we installed in front: less water demanded, less maintenance required, native plants and stone where Kentucky bluegrass once thrived. For now, the looming task of yard restoration has lifted. I can hear the shrill territorial call of the hummingbird without my blood pressure spiking in response.

Bring on summer—but hopefully with afternoon thunderstorms rolling in from the mountains, rain drumming on the deck and soaking deep into our thirsty soil. The hummingbirds will dart between raindrops. The perennials will drink. And I'll watch from the kitchen window, grateful that for once, someone else is doing the watering.

Masters Nationals Recap

 The crush of swimmers in Friday's warmup pool sent us searching all twenty lanes for an opening. Before jumping in, we ran into Rocky Mountain teammates who warned us about the slippery metal facing on the far walls—already responsible for slips on the 400 free relay. Aden and I raised our eyebrows at each other, then plunged into the waves to test the competition pool, our sleep-deprived haze broken by near-panic.

Aden's 100 breast came first. Already wedged into her new tech suit, she fired off her best time in four years. After a loop through the cool-down pool, Aden and my friend Ellen joined me in the locker room to wrestle me into my own new suit—brick red material so small it seemed impossible it would clear my knees, let alone rise over my rear and hips. Somehow, with a woman on either side hiking the fabric over the Crisco-style spray I'd lubed with, they lifted me at the hips until I hung suspended like a puppet on strings, the suit inching upward.

After adjusting the suit again in warmup, I raced my 50 fly and came close to my goal time, earning second place and posting what currently ranks second in the country for my age group. Disappointed in missing the mark, I threw everything into the 100 free, where altitude training helped me push through the back half to a time I haven't seen in seven years. A talented swimmer from Wisconsin Masters who'd been in several of my races grasped my hand at the finish. I lifted both our hands skyward—relief and joy pouring through me.

The community of swimmers and families sustained and astonished us over three days. Rob and William made the flight to Greensboro to cheer us on, their voices rising above the din each time Aden or I stepped onto the blocks—a reminder that the best support comes from those who watched us overcome every moment of doubt. I encountered a former Harvard teammate and classmate from New England who recognized me despite thirty-four intervening years and a name change. Aden and I rubbed shoulders with former Cal star Reece Whitley. Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Jenny Thompson anchored the relay next to ours in the 45+ mixed free competition.

Even more poignant than the Olympians were encounters with new friends waiting poolside between races. I met a remarkable woman from Idaho in remission from aggressive melanoma. She'd survived brutal treatment over the past few years and lost sight in one eye, but that didn't stop her from climbing the blocks, throwing herself at turns on those treacherous slippery walls, racing to strong times.

The indefatigable human spirit blazed everywhere—ninety-seven-year-olds competing and setting records to the astonishment and delight of 2,000+ athletes and spectators. My personal highlight came in the women's 55+ medley relay, swimming fly and hitting 28.3—surpassing my fourteen-year-old mark by one-tenth of a second. It's not a legal time because I jumped in after anticipating the breaststroker's touch rather than starting from the gun, but I accept the gift from my former self. Next time, I'll do it in the actual race.

What the water teaches: that community matters more than individual times, that courage looks like a woman racing half-blind on unfamiliar walls, that ninety-seven-year-olds can still set records, that two friends can literally lift you into a suit you couldn't manage alone. The relationships forged poolside—the hand grasped at the finish, the warning about slippery walls, the recognition across decades—these prove more rewarding than any clock ever could.

With inspiration drawn from the Masters swimming community and my family, what else is there but to start planning for Irvine next year? The water will be there, waiting. So will the community. And so, I hope, will I—perhaps a tenth of a second faster, certainly grateful for every moment spent in the company of people who understand why we keep diving in.