2015 at Wrigley: The Year of the Beard

The Cubs current 40-man roster, broken down by beardliness:

Players with a full beard commitment:


Jake Arrieta

Dallas Beeler:

Justin Grimm:

Jon Lester:

Jason Motte:

Joseph Ortiz:

Blake Parker:

Neil Ramirez:

Brian Schlitter:

Dan Straily:

Travis Wood:

Rafael Lopez:

Start of Something Wonderful:

Jason Hammel:

Eric Jokisch:

Zac Rosscup (more like 5 o'clock shadow, so he does need to work on this):

Jacob Turner, sporting the "It's Only 5 O'Clock Shadow, But I'll Try Harder Next Year" Beard:

Welington Castillo:

Miguel Montero:

Tommy La Stella:

Mike Olt:

Matt Szczur:

Something On The Chin (We'll Take It):


Felix Doubront

CJ Edwards:

Edwin Jackson:

Hector Rondon (it's there, pencil thin, but there):

Pedro Strop:

Arismendy Alcantara: 

Javier Baez:

Luis Valbuena:

Junior Lake; 

Jorge Soler: 

The Ones Who Don't Need It, But We Won't Complain If You Get it:



Kyle Hendricks, sporting the "I'm a Little Baby and This is the Most Beardly I Can Be!" Beard:

Tsuyoshi Wada, sporting the "I Don't Think a Beard Can Grow Here" Beard:

Anthony Rizzo, sporting the "I'm Anthony Rizzo and I Don't Need a Beard Because I'm Anthony Rizzo" Beard:

Chris Coghlan, sporting the "I May Be Clean Shaven, But the Hair on My Head is Curly and Interesting" Beard:

Ryan Sweeney, sporting the "Beardless Beard of Perfection" Beard:

TRY HARDER:

Mike Kickham, sporting the "I Came From the Giants So I Didn't Want to Grow a Beard and Be Associated with Their Beards, But I Will Grow One in Chicago!" Beard:

Starlin Castro, sporting the "I Have No Beard So Just Trade Me" Beard

Christian Villanueva, sporting the "I Know I Need to Try Harder" Beard:

Soriano's retirement and some of my feelings

My antibiotics give me sleeplessness. At 3 a.m., unable to sleep, I scrolled through Facebook and saw several posts about the retirement of Alfonso Soriano.

Now, I was wide awake.

For some reason, Fonsi leaving the game gave me a great sadness. Anyone who has been a Cubs fan for the last 10 years or so understands the love/hate relationship we had with the guy.

By the time the Cubs signed Soriano as a free agent in 2007, he was a seasoned veteran with a pretty impressive career, but most people agreed he was not worth $136 million deal, especially an 8-year deal. He had some good years, but not great years. He was not the 40-40 or 30-30 guy anymore. His knees were shot and his speed was gone. He still hit home runs, towering ones that came from nowhere, but this man who used to lead the league in walks now struck out once a day at least. He had become a left fielder before he got the Cubs, and sometimes he made impressive plays, but mostly he was the guy trotting toward the fly balls, always ceding to the center fielder or the shortstop. He was the guy who missed routine pop ups a couple times a year. He was the guy everyone booed from the bleachers. He was the guy with the cannon for an arm---if he got his hands on the ball at all. And he often did not.

The players loved him, though. Every team he played for, and especially the Cubs, considered him their number one clubhouse leader. He was the guy who pepped them up. He was the guy who made them believe they could win. He took the kids out to dinner and he was always a big tipper to the Cubs employees. During batting practice, he was joking with the other Dominicans, flirting and winking at the girls in the stands, and creating a fun atmosphere. Maybe he should've been shagging balls, but according to the boys in blue, he was the hardest-working guy on the team, and he was in incredible pain every step he took. He was never healthy. It was a hamstring, or a knee, or his hand, or his back. It was always something, because he was getting older. He was 30 when he signed with the Cubs, and 30 in baseball is middle age. You're well past your prime. He was supposed to play with the Cubs until he was 38 years old, a free coffee at McDonalds, a discount on a hotel room, senior citizen in baseball years.

Piniella was open about his lost faith in Sori, and moved him from the leadoff position to the middle of the lineup. Soriano accepted it, said he knew it was for the good of the team. And the change in the order actually worked out for him--when he could stay healthy.

Mike Quade took over at the end of the 2010 season and stayed for 2011. I still don't know what he was doing there. But sources say that he didn't do much to nurture the players, and he had no use for Soriano.

Then in 2012, Dale Sveum showed up, and suddenly Soriano was hitting again. Fonsi gushed praise for Sveum and the new coaches, saying that having people believe in him changed everything for him. He wasn't the 30-30 guy anymore, but he was hitting home runs consistently. Everyone thought he would be traded. But no one wanted that salary attached to that old man.

Finally, in 2013, the Yankees took him, and that was that.

As Cubs fans will, they both complained and praised about the trade. The players were sad and gave lots of sad quotes to the media about losing their leader. Most of those players are also gone.

In July 2014, the Yankees designated him for assignment. The Yankees do that a lot because they have the money to throw away. They do it to young players who are too late to find a spot on another team, and they do it to old guys who need to be put down. ESPN.com quotes Alfonso as saying, "I've lost the love and passion to play the game. Right now, my family is the most important thing. Although I consider myself in great shape, my mind is not focused on baseball." Not exactly a Lou Gehrig speech, but still touching and sad. He'll probably live out the rest of his life in his native Dominican Republic, and maybe he won't touch a baseball again.

I liked him. He was a broken down old mare, but I liked him. I liked that wide smile. He used to blow me kisses and throw me balls and wink at me. He only stopped for autographs one time in all the many hundreds of games I went to, and we took a photo. I didn't know much about autographs then. He autographed a cheap team ball and it has faded now, so I have no autograph from him. I do have the picture, though. I remember he smelled fantastic. And I remember high-fiving him after almost every game.

My dad was a big fan of his. He always brought up the 40 home run, 40 stolen base season and he would always say that Sori could do it again. We just had to be patient. That was my dad. He could never badmouth the hometown guys. But the Cubs are a different team now. It's all about youth. There is no place for an Alfonso Soriano type on this team. The clubhouse leader is the young, reckless Anthony Rizzo, who, at 24, is one of the veterans now. Remember, you have to think in baseball years.

So I say goodbye to you, Alfonso Soriano. I wish you could have retired at the end of the season after winning the last game with a home run in the bottom of the ninth. I wish you hadn't heard the boos. I wish you hadn't been forced out. But good for you for retiring when the love was gone. I'll always have a place in my heart for you.

It's funny when people say that time heals all. I don't agree. I don't believe all wounds are meant to heal. Furthermore, I don't believe it's a bad thing to carry around our various scars and scrapes and deformities caused by life. There's a lot to be said for pain, and not in some kind of masochistic way in which I seek out pain. I just think it changes us and forms us, and it makes us strong.

I know some of my deformities are visible, even as I try to hide them. I act carefree and optimistic, but they hear that stutter of uncertainty, they see my limp. I am changed by pain. It has affected me and altered me. But again, I am okay with that.

I remember a guy I dated once who kind of lived in a protective little bubble of his own making. It was hard for him to relate to me, and I to him, but we made it work for a while. But then I got in a pretty bad car accident, and it was more than he could handle. I knew it would never get better. I needed someone who knew disappointment and heartache and setbacks. Ironically, when I broke off the relationship, he completely freaked out. He couldn't handle it--it was too painful. He didn't know how to react.

When I think back to some of the most painful things I have experienced, I think they all start with pleasure and end with perspective. I think of the boy who loved to play with my hair, how he said such sweet things to me, how he made me believe that the world would always turn in my favor. You probably all have had those euphoristic moments when you are quite close to floating on the air created by your happiness, when you could look at the world outside and, no matter how hard it was storming, always see the sun. That was me. And when he left me, the world was so dark. I cried on the bathroom floor until someone found me and sat with me and said nothing. My hair felt empty without his hand. That sweet mouth that had spoken words of love now spoke with words of indifference (incidentally, let's just be clear that indifference is FAR worse than hate). But I survived. Somehow I walked away with just some scars, but I lived. Those scars affect me still; they shape the way I act in relationships and the way I view myself. Those scars have damaged me, but they also helped create my independence. How can I mind them?

Time hasn't healed all of my wounds, as you can see, but I am okay with that. I am thankful for the scars and the perspective.

Fatherless Day

Oh man. You know, I knew this day was coming, almost exactly 6 months after the death of my dad. But I really thought I'd be better by now. Not over it, maybe, because losing a dad isn't something you just forget about, but I thought I'd feel closer to whole. I don't. I feel worse than ever. I feel like every day that gets closer to Father's Day, I think of one more way that I was a pretty bad daughter.

It's ridiculous. I was a great daughter. My dad and I had a lot of fun, and a lot of good talks, and spent a lot of time together. Truth be told, he would be the first to say that I was a far better daughter than he was a dad. But I still think of all the things we didn't do together, and lately I begin to cry at the slightest reminder that I will never talk to my dad again. It's hard to NOT think of all the things you didn't do, didn't say, all the ways you let him down. But I always did Father's Day right by him, that I know.

Every Father's Day, I went to church, then stopped and picked up food, then went to his house to watch the Sox game. That was our pattern every year since years began. He was a simple guy. I usually bought him a couple Sox t-shirts or something. But what he really wanted was to watch the Sox with me, just to spend time with me doing something he loved. That was the real present.

This year I decided I would leave town for Father's Day. I thought being away physically might also distance the pain emotionally. But a couple weeks ago, when I began to cry more regularly at the thought of this day coming, I realized that it didn't matter where I was. I'm going to cry on June 15th. I may even cry the whole day, even among strangers, even making people super uncomfy. Geography isn't going to stop me from remembering that I should be sitting in my dad's dusty living room eating pizza and listening to him tell me why the White Sox were the greatest team in the entire universe and Paul Konerko should be president of the world and Gordon Beckham should've won the Gold Glove the last three years and Alexei Ramirez should stay with the team at ANY COST and Robin Ventura is a genius and just you wait until Adam Dunn gets on a roll because he will blast every home run imaginable and have you seen Jose Abreu and what a steal he was and that brilliant Rick Hahn, etc., etc., etc. My dad loved the Sox and supported their every move. I still can't wrap my mind around the idea that he is gone and those conversations are over.

So here's how I will spend Father's Day. In Chicago. At a White Sox game. Family Sunday, which I realize sounds like I am torturing myself, but listen---I look forward to seeing dads with their daughters. It might make me sad, it might make me miss him more, but above all of that, I will remember my own father's delight when he realized that I loved baseball and he would have a child to watch with, to talk with. I will remember how he drove all the way through Chicago during rush hour so he could take me to Southlake Mall in Hobart, Indiana, so I could meet my favorite baseball player, Robin Ventura, how he laughed when I cried and said I reminded him of a girl he knew who met the Beatles. I will remember all the times he took me to SoxFest, such a waste of a ticket because he didn't care about autographs or anything--he just loved watching my reaction meeting players. I will remember all the Twins-Sox games we went to, and how he would roll his eyes and say, "Are you really going to wear that?" at my Twins gear. I will remember my dear old dad and our good baseball times as I watch loads of dear old dads with their kids, and I hope they all savor every second, because who knew you only get 65 years sometimes? I will cry, but I will be happy because Andre Rienzo is pitching, and my dad absolutely raved about him, and he is one of my favorite people on this planet. Maybe I'll splurge and get really good seats and just enjoy the game. Maybe I will buy an extra ticket for my dad, even though he probably won't make it. Maybe I am getting all my tears out now and there will be nothing left Sunday.

But the bottom line is, I will spend this Fatherless Day with the White Sox, who, in spite of my support for the Cubs and Twins, I really do love. I will always love them because they brought my dad and me together 22 years ago, and they kept our relationship solid up until the day he died. So see ya Sunday, Sox!

The last days of Dad

Today I thought of you.
The weather was perfect,
Perfect for grilling, you would say.

This is what it would have looked like:

You, out on your patio, grilling.
Me in the living room, texting,
Ballgame on in the background.
I'd switch it from Cubs when you walked in.
You'd watch the Sox, then Hawks, then Sox again,
And I would turn it to the Cubs game
When you checked on the grill.

You'd say dinner would be ready in 30.
It was always more like 60.
I'd watch the clock, check my phone.

"What is it you're doing?"
You would ask, because you didn't get it.
You would rather talk to me,
But I was checking all the social media outlets
Or texting friends, wondering,
Had I stayed long enough yet?

How many times did you ask me over
And I didn't come?
Why was I so busy?
How hard would it have been to sit on your couch,
Watching the ball games, eating your food?

The end came swiftly.
I didn't get to say goodbye to you.
I said goodbye to someone else
In a body that didn't even look like yours.

When I visited you, I turned on
The Hawks, the Bears, the Bulls,
Whoever was playing.
You were mostly asleep, but I thought
Maybe it would help.

Time in hospice is so misleading
Because it is exactly the same amount
Slow and fast, dragging and flying by.

The last game you watched,
The Bears were on
You were in your hospice bed,
I was at your side.

I tried to tell you what was happening,
But, remember, I was never that into football.
I made some terms up, and laughed,
Because it was funny, you, dying,
While your beloved daughter
Described what was happening to your
Beloved Bears.

I promised you time that you didn't have.
You slept fitfully
While Charles Tillman and Jay Cutler
And a few other guys lost the game.

I thought, couldn't you just win this one for him?

You died a week before Christmas.
You never saw the Cubs win a pennant.
You never saw Fenway in person.
You never went to Argentina.
But you did get those 1985 Bears,
The Bulls of the 90s,
The Hawks the summer before you died,
And the 2005 White Sox.

You had a lot of dreams.
I wish I had just one more week.
I couldn't give you a Cubs pennant,
But we could have gone to Fenway.

How two baseball stars made me cry, in a good way

Ian was excited to give me my birthday present. "Do you want it now, or at your party?" he asked a week early.

"Party," I said, and he looked disappointed, but he complied. So on the day of my birthday party, January 5, 2014, he gave me my present.

"Open the card first," he said, with that crooked smile of his. On the inside, he had written, "Get #3 on this." I looked at him questioningly. "Or David Price," he said, his grin widening. And that's when I figured out "#3" was referring to star third-baseman for the Rays, Evan Longoria.

I opened up the present, and it was a Tampa Bay Rays baseball. I love collecting team baseballs, although I don't usually get autographs on them, as their quality is bad and usually the autograph fades. But it was such a sweet, thoughtful gift from Ian, a Tampa-area native, and I thought, even though these big stars were probably out of my ability to get, I would try to get their autographs, then show him and impress him.

But what made the ball even more special was that he bought it at all. Ian rarely had two dimes to rub together. He was finishing up his senior year of college and paying his own way. While his soccer scholarship paid for part of his education, it also prevented him from working much, so money was tight. The fact that he got it for me at all was lovely. But it also looked like it was bought used. The plastic casing was cracked and there was no label on it. There was a little tear along the seam on one side. Maybe it was even his once and he was giving it to me. I am the kind of person who LOVES used gifts. Find me some books at a thrift store or a weird necklace at a garage sale, and I am so touched. Ian knew that I absolutely loved baseball and the Rays were one of my favorite teams. So this was special to me, very sweet and very dear.

Exactly two weeks after my party, I came home from Soxfest, having had a really great day, only to find out that Ian was dead. He was the victim of an apparent suicide, although I still have my doubts about all of that, but that is a story for another day. It didn't really matter why, but he was gone. Ian, talented soccer player, brilliant biology major, about to be an officer in the Marines, was never going to come over again. We were all devastated. My family loved Ian as if he were already our brother-in-law. He practically lived with us the previous summer and spent his free time with our family. He was nerdy enough to talk excitedly to my stepdad about science, but sweet enough to go with my sister to a Jonas Brothers concert. No one was more devastated than Jennie, who had planned to spend the rest of her life with Ian. I guess we all took for granted Ian's presence in our family. It was whole with him and now there was a hole without him.

I put the card from him and the baseball in a box. I couldn't really look at it. My dad had died a month earlier, and I still hadn't really faced that. I have never been afraid of death--when it's time to go, you go. My dad was relatively young when he died at 65, but, besides that, he had been in hospice for a few weeks and I knew it was coming. But not Ian, not 22-years young and funny and thoughtful Ian. So I was pretty angry at death now. I know God is the one who orders our days, so maybe I was mad at Him, but I don't think so. I never looked at it as God's fault. I think I was just mad that death had to exist, thanks to our stupid sin. I was mad at mental illness and depression, because that's what took Ian ultimately. I guess I was really mad at Ian, because I didn't think he was thinking about how our family would be lost and crying for days without him, how my sister was destroyed. Did he imagine that I, who was not even as close to him as most of my family, would still cry about him on a weekly basis three months after he left? So I hid the stuff he gave me because seeing it made me remember the things I loved about him and it was so much easier to be angry.

But when baseball season started, I knew I had to try to get those autographs. The Rays came into town to play the Sox this weekend, and they play the Cubs later on, in August. That gave me 7 games to try to fulfill his wish. Friday night I tried, but no luck, and then the doubt crept in and I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to carry this stupid ball around anymore, empty of autographs. For some reason, it made me sob, and I was at a freaking baseball game for crying out loud. There's no crying in baseball!

The next day, Saturday, I arrived early in the hopes of catching one of them pulling in to the park. My friend Cisco, who works in the parking lot, knew my story. He had actually been with me the day Ian died. Cisco told me that he had spoken to David Price and told him a little about me, and Price said he wanted to hear my story. That was really nice of Cisco, but I didn't actually believe David Price cared one dot about my story. I'm sure people have all kinds of stories they use to get autographs. I was still going to try, though.

When I got inside, I assumed my regular post by the dugout. There were about 40 people there, and they all wanted Longoria and Price. They were shouting for the guys, which is rude, but I get it. But I started to get mad, thinking how a lot of these guys would probably sell the stuff and they didn't want the autographs like I did. They didn't understand that for me to have some kind of peace in my heart, I had to get this stupid ball signed.

Then Evan Longoria jogged over. And he jogged right to where I was standing. I couldn't speak, just held out the ball. He signed it and I tried to thank him, but at this point, I was crying way too hard to say much. Evan didn't notice and I know I was just another greedy grapher to him, but when he signed that ball for me, it was like a dam had burst, but one you wanted to burst. I wanted to know that I could fulfill the birthday wish Ian gave me. I immediately smeared the signature, but that was okay. Even if I never got Price, I had done what he asked in the card. I could put the ball on a shelf and I could stop worrying about getting it signed.

Except that, when batting practice ended, David Price, one of the best pitchers of our time, came jogging over, too. And right to me. He took the ball from me, signed it, then said, "I want to hear your story." So I told him, as best as I could as the tears flowed freely. And as the graphers shoved their books in front of me and pressed against me and completely ignored the sobbing girl in front of them, David Price looked at me, and I could see that he really cared, even though he didn't know me and didn't know why this was such a big deal.

"Aw, come on, now, don't cry," he said, and he looked so sad himself. "I gotta give you a hug. Move back, people." And the crowd grudgingly parted, and the great David Price took me in his arms and hugged me.

I don't know how heaven works, but am I crazy to hope Ian saw that?

I am so thankful for both Longoria and Price, who took time for the fans, even though they have no idea why it was such a big deal. The graphers around me, oblivious to my crying, asked me why I got that cheap ball signed and not a baseball card. They're idiots. That cheap ball with the smeared autographs is now on a shelf above my bed, and I prize it more highly than almost anything else. I always will, and I will always love those two guys.

Why I love that dump called Wrigley Field

I've touched the ivy. I've run in the outfield and kicked up infield dirt. I've stood in the same places where Ruth and Banks and Sandberg walked and ran and laughed. There's hardly a seat in that stadium I don't know. I've sat in the uppermost corner where you can see absolutely everything, small and far, but clear and true. And I've sat right behind home plate, so close that I could have touched the players if it weren't for the netting, so close that I could see the sweat beading the foreheads of the most beautiful people I have ever known. I've sat in the famous bleachers, listening to the heckling and trying to catch the balls during B.P. I've seen it all from everywhere.

If you have never been to Wrigley Field, you cannot possibly understand the uniqueness, the beauty, the art of the field. It comes out of nowhere. You can't see it from the highway. You have to find it. You have to look for it. I love the feeling of walking down Sheridan past the fancy brick buildings where all the rich people live, and then it's there, almost like an afterthought, almost like someone shoved it in the middle of a neighborhood because it didn't fit anywhere else. It looks a little bit like it's bursting at the seams, pieces of it spilling onto the sidewalk, fans spilling onto the streets because there's nowhere else to walk.

On game days, the endless array of Wrigleyville bars are busy and loud many hours before the game, many hours after. Cubs fans like their liquor, probably a little more than they like their baseball. They can tell you what beers Wrigley has on tap, but will have trouble naming four active players on the team. I saw a shirt once that said "Win or Lose, We Still Booze." That is probably the best description of Cubs fans, fans that come in the third inning and leave in the seventh, after the historic stretch that is different than at any other ballpark. Harry Caray made "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" more than a song--he made it an entity of itself ("Let's get some runs!"). And now in his absence someone famous and Chicagoey will sing it, and you can look across the groups of fans, blue caps in the air swaying to the music, and jerseys laced with names of players long gone, because most players don't stay with the Cubs. We Cubs fans know this and accept this; we hold onto our boys loosely. The ones we love best will either become mediocre or will be traded. There was a time before I existed when the Cubs unit was consistent. These days, the good ones never stay. They are just commodities to be traded for some phantom championship team we are promised will come later, but never does.

But don't think about wins and losses when you look at Wrigley, because you will be too disappointed to enjoy the experience. You will walk inside the dark concourse toward the stairs, and you have to stop. You have to tell yourself that you will never again see Wrigley Field for the first time. And then you will walk from darkness into that bright, bright sun, and you will see greener grass than you thought existed. You will see the stark white of the uniforms, the balls flying off the bats in practice, you will run to the fence that keeps us mere mortals off the field, and you will be closer to baseball than you deserve to be. Turn to the left and see a young boy with a too-large glove who keeps asking if a player will come over for an autograph. Turn to the right and see a pair of elderly gentleman arguing about the merits of Castro and Rizzo, and years ago Sandberg and Grace, and even years earlier as young professionals after work discussing Jenkins and Williams. Cubs fans start young and never leave. We die at Wrigley. We are doomed and cursed and trapped.

We are teased just enough to stick around. Right now, we have the promise of their farm system, full of the best prospects in baseball. The word is out that we will have a championship caliber team in less than five years. And in the early part of this century, our hopes were never higher than October of 2003, five outs away from history, with the unhittable Wood and Prior leading our team to victories, only to be destroyed as quickly as Steve Bartman's safety on a cool October night. My heart was broken so completely that October night, and in the following nights, and I have never allowed myself to hope that much again.

But here's the thing. The players change. They get terrible or they leave us. We remember with a sharp pain watching Kerry Wood's career dissolve. I sat a few feet away from where he threw his glove into the stands in disgust, and, just days later, I listened on the radio, tears running down my face, the evening Kerry Wood's young son came running out to him after the last strikeout of his career. I remember Sandberg retiring twice. I remember watching Shawon Dunston, my dad's personal favorite, turn singles into doubles, wheels churning around the bases, and then suddenly he was gone. I always get attached to the relief pitchers, and they NEVER stay. I loved Quirky Turk Wendell in the 90's and I love Blake Parker now and no one stays. I watched Darwin Barney, whose fielding is as poetic and beautiful as his name isn't, and I see him sitting the bench now and know is days are numbered.

But Wrigley will not change. Even if they put up the gratuitously enormous television screens and make the clubhouses better for the players and add all kinds of fancy stuff, they will never take away that ivy, they will never take away the green of the grass, the old scoreboard and marquee. I will see those familiar landmarks, and the kids will still be there, and the old guys will still be there, and I will still be there. I want to leave, but I can't.When I'm at Wrigley, I'm home.

Baseball Sans Dad

It’s harder than I thought to watch baseball without my father. I’m sadder than I thought I would be for longer than I thought I would be. It’s surprising how choked up I feel right now as I write, yet also how compelled I feel to write. I had meant to keep my blog up-to-date this season, but I begin to write, and my fingers cramp, and my heart aches, and I wonder if my dad is watching baseball now, somehow, or if he’s watching me and thinking that he is also surprised about how much I miss him.

I have wanted to call him so many times already, have even stupidly reached for my phone and then remembered that it doesn’t work like that anymore. I see fathers with their sons, and it just hurts so much that we will never watch a game together again. My eyes will randomly fill as I watch the game, out of nowhere, because of nothing, except a deep, searing emptiness.

So this baseballgirl is going to try to get back to the writing, but it may take a while. In the meantime, just cherish the ones you have, even those diehard White Sox fans like my dad who wanted to see another Crosstown Series and who would have secretly rooted for the Cubs, just for me.

Grieving 101

I've learned a few things about grief and grieving in the last couple months. I'm not an expert by any means, but there are some things I have learned that I'd like to share.

1. Don't fight the emotion. When my dad died, I didn't want my family or co-workers or friends to think I was a mess, so I did whatever it took to not cry or not be angry or whatever random emotion I felt at the time. I cracked jokes and went to work like it was no big deal. I concentrated so hard on trying to act a certain way that I was barely functioning. When Ian died, I just lost it, and I let myself lose it most of the time, even though I was worried that my mom would think I was a wimp or I would be upsetting my sister more. I took a week off work and I spent time with my family and just accepted that he was dead and it was real and I needed to just feel it. I still fight the emotions, but I am starting to let go. The more I let the emotions out, the longer periods of time I feel better. If people can't handle that, who cares? That's their problem.

2. Most people are terrible at helping people through grief---or so I thought at first. People kept saying, "I know how you feel," and I wanted to punch them in the throat, because they did NOT know how I felt. I didn't even know how I felt. People annoy me when they don't ask about the person I lost, and they annoy me when they do (there's a quote about this in my favorite movie, Moonlight Mile, that makes way more sense to me now). But after my initial annoyance, I found that most people were just trying really really hard to make me feel better. And the ones that helped the most were the ones who shared their own grief with me because I could see that they went through this and they survived. People I barely knew wrote me the most touching notes. I think it was hardest for my closest friends to help because my grief had transformed me into a weirdo they didn't know how to handle. So I learned that I needed to accept everyone's attempts to make me feel better unless they started to make me feel worse. And even though I always feel awkward when someone loses a loved one, I have learned that it's more important that I make an attempt to show I care. Even if I do a terrible job of support, I am trying, and they will eventually appreciate it.

3. People can be mean and uncaring FOR REAL. There are those who want you to be over it in a certain amount of time and never talk about it again, as if you will wake up on Day 3, yawn, stretch, and be over it. Maybe they feel that way because they lost someone and they got over it quickly, so they think everyone should. How dare they? To be fair, most of the people who are uncaring about grieving have never lost anyone. They can't understand the way it feels to relive that loss every morning when you wake up to find out it WASN'T all a nightmare. Grief is different for everyone. When someone loses a loved one, and that person calls into work, it is NOT okay to give them a list of things to do before they are allowed to start grieving. So that is when it is okay to just turn off your phone and computer and say FORGET them. If you are grieving, work should be on the bottom of your list of priorities. The first time I went through it, I did all my work stuff, even though I had a supervisor telling me to stop and just not work. The second time, I just turned off my phone. I didn't feel bad about it at all. And you shouldn't either. I've watched other people grieve and say stuff on facebook and have been astounded at the ignorant, callous things people have said. Thankfully, my facebook friends have been openly supportive, and their words of encouragement meant the world to me. If you are grieving, you can't give someone a time limit, an end-time to your grief. Sorry, people. It will be messy. Grief isn't pretty. You have to figure out a new way to live, a way to face life without a person you love. It doesn't happen overnight.

4. Never give up hope. My hope is in the Lord. I trust that He has a purpose in all that happens. I believe that everything that happens is under his control. Do I know why he spared my life and not Ian's? Do I think it's because I'm better than him? No to both. Quite the opposite. But I trust that this is all a part of something much bigger than me and my finite understanding. I trust God's plan. It is the only thing that has kept me going through all of this. I know not all of you believe in God, and I don't know how you handle anything in life without that belief. But that is how I do it. People have said that I am strong, but I'm not. I'm depressingly weak, but He is strong.

5. Weird things help. Baseball helped. It helped to tell baseball players that my dad died, and that baseball had always been something we shared. Movies and books helped because I could escape into a fake world for a little while. Looking at photos and reading notes and listening to voicemails may have been a bad idea but they helped in the moment. Is it better to pretend the loved one never existed? I don't think so, at least not for me. Let yourself do what you need to do, as long as you are not hurting anyone else. And, by the way, if you do blame someone or have a grudge concerning the loved one lost, don't bring it up. It's never okay to hurt someone else just because you're hurting, too. That is called bullying.

6. If your friend is grieving, just be there for them. Yes, like I mentioned earlier, you may say all the wrong things, but you will be there, and they will know that, and it will mean more to them than you know. There were times when I was waiting to hear from just one of my close friends, and for whatever reason, they didn't check in. I just wanted to be reminded that they cared. Irrational, maybe, but so much about grieving is irrational and emotions are out of control. It helps to hear from your friends. Maybe don't ask about all the details--they'll tell you when they want to. Don't be nosy--just be there. You won't do everything right, but you won't do everything wrong, either.

I hope this helps you, but if it doesn't, it helped me to write it.