A short break

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Some of you who know me in my real life may have heard that my mom passed away last week. It wasn’t entirely unexpected—she had pancreatic cancer, but at the end she went downhill quickly and aggressively.

One of the great benefits to freelancing is that I was able to get on a plane right away to get to my hometown and spend my mom’s final moments with her. I didn’t have to book time off (I sent an email to my clients to let them know I’d be away for a few days, and all were very understanding), and I don’t have to worry about getting back before my bereavement leave is over.

I got my love of words from both my parents. My dad (who passed away in 2015) loved reading, and was constantly buying non-fiction books so he could learn more about the world. My mom was a teacher-librarian, and I spent a great deal of my youth in her school libraries, consuming books. In fact, most of my childhood was spent with my head in a book.

Mom was always encouraging us to read, to share our love of books, and to research and think critically. She was never one to tell us how to spell a word, instead we had to look it up in a dictionary. And when we had questions about how the world worked, she pointed to the shelf where our encyclopedias sat and told us to learn for ourselves.

My parents showed me how much of the world could be understood simply by flipping pages in a book. It was the foundation for my career as a freelancer.

When my dad died, I made the mistake of thinking work would be a good distraction. I tried working in the days immediately following his death and turned in some of the worst work in my life. I’ll share more about that experience later, but for now I’ll just say that I’m not making the same mistake again.

Next week I’ll get back to regular posting, but for this week I need to take some time to grieve and focus on processing.

Thank you for understanding,

Heidi