February 16, 2020 marks a decade without Mom. For her this past decade should have been a golden one, enjoying her grandsons as they grew and became teenagers, buying dolls and paint sets for her granddaughter, celebrating with two of her daughters as they got married (one of them me), spending more time traveling with my dad, helping her own elderly mother…and thinking about how she wanted to celebrate her 70th birthday next year. Mom with her mom and granddaughter 10 years ago How much Mom has missed these last 10 years. How much I have missed her and longed for her! But from her...

Last night I stood in the stillness of an early spring evening overlooking Center Hill Lake, a beauty tucked between tree-covered hills in Smithville, TN. The only sounds were the chirps and calls of birds. No motors, no cars, no construction, no voices. Early this fog-smitten Saturday morning, I trekked downhill on a trail to the water’s edge through the shadowy woods. The song of Pippin Took in The Return of the King played in the background of my mind: Mist and shadow Cloud and shade All will fade All will fade I watched gulls and their mirror images fly over the cove shrouded in mist and disappear...

It’s been more than a decade since my mother gave me a crystal creamer and sugar bowl set. It’s been so long now that I don’t remember the date. But I do remember how excited I was to receive it, as well as the general timeframe when I broke the creamer—around four years after she died. I was so disappointed. It had been elegant and beautiful, and still a fresh reminder of my mother’s love for me. Now half the set was missing. It was another incident that exemplified the growing distance between my current life and my life when my mother was alive. I’ve always been on the sentimental side, but after...

Photo by Mary Beth Griffo Rigby When I was a little girl, I noticed baby’s breath in the hair of the bride at a family wedding. Throughout my girlhood and adolescence, the lacy flower almost always lent its delicate beauty to bridal bouquets. I’ve always loved it. For years I’ve associated baby’s breath with brides. So when it was included in one of the cover design options for my book, it somehow felt like an appropriate representation of what my book is about—grappling with the unfulfilled desire for marriage. Months later, I learned that baby’s breath is the perfect symbolic image for my book, but...

This week, the world lost one of America’s best poets when 83-year-old Mary Oliver died. I still remember when I first discovered her poetry, perhaps 15 or 20 years ago. I found her poems to be rich with meaning but not abstruse, honest with depth of feeling but not depressing, and beautifully descriptive yet so much more than mere observation. My soul thrilled. Here was a writer—a poet!—who spoke of trees, flowers, the beach, and so many other aspects of nature as I experienced them, as though through a special relationship. (But let’s be honest: I detest ants and snakes, while she very obviously did...