Author: Mama Fish (Page 1 of 34)

The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski

October 25, 2026 / Mama Fish / 0 Comments

My daughter and I were shopping at the Good Will Store (one of my favorite places to find lost treasures) and I was pulled to the cart of items to go back on the shelves. Lying on the middle shelf was a book, “The Five Invitations.” The cover read “discovering what death can teach us about living fully.” I picked it up and put it down. On our way to the cash register, something told me to go back and buy the book. I’m glad I did.

Frank Ostaseski is the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, whose book is an encouragement to show up and be fully present in this life. This is not a new topic, but Frank has given us a blueprint of how to do that in five invitations which included examples from the people he cared for in hospice.

The first invitation is about not waiting. Start living now. He writes, “…if we regarded dying as a final stage of growth…that held an unprecedented opportunity for transformation could we turn toward death like a master teacher and ask, “How, then, shall I live?” This invitation includes accepting the notion that death is merely another stage, that we continue as energy, that mindfulness supports fear and anxiety and the importance of forgiving others and our selves.

The second invitation is about welcoming everything, push away nothing. Frank tells us that this idea is the opposite to rejecting. By accepting what comes to us, what we experience is part of the plan to which we should trust. And that acceptance of this attitude is not resignation. “It is an opening to possibility, the basis for a skillful response to life.”

The third invitation Frank invites us to bring our whole self to the experience. It is about being a soul, not a role. How to listen, feel and follow your inner voice. This invitation agrees with how unfair, how difficult this life may be, and it reassures us that bringing all our emotions to the moment is permitted.

The fourth invitation is about finding a place to rest, the importance of slowing down or taking a reprieve. It is about the importance of mindfulness, meditation and how these practices bring awareness. “Awareness itself is the ultimate resting place.”

The fifth, and final invitation is about cultivating a don’t know mind. An interesting idea to be receptive, to meet whatever shows up as it is. It is not to seek ignorance but rather be curious and live in wonder.

I bought this book thinking it might be a good read for my clients, giving me greater insight or learnings of how to support those wishing to live life fully in the face of death. And it did. But it was also good for grief. The invitations align with the tools we use to soothe our pain and to explore connecting to our loved ones in a new way. The invitations can initiate a life of living fully, with those we love here, and with those we love across the realm.

The Building of Intent and Impact

October 18, 2026 / Mama Fish / 0 Comments

This week I was asked to focus on Intent and Impact. For everything one does, there is intention behind why do it, what is the desired impact. Humans are geared to strive for impact; it is what measures our success, our purpose. If we don’t experience or witness impact, then we begin to struggle. Impact keeps us moving forward.

Our intention is the work towards impact and should be structured into stages. My intention in the morning is to start the day calm and organized. The impact will be I am more productive, less reactive. My intention for work is dictated by my task list. The impact is the productive feeling of checking off the boxes. My intention for evening is to relax, unwind. The impact is that I am more available through rest. It seems easy, when intent is clear and desired impact known, it is then that the path seems less chaotic.

Intent is about every aspect of one’s life. The intention to create a home that is supportive and nurturing with the desired impact that your family feels safe and loved. The intention to succeed at work with the expected impact of monetary and intellectual rewards. Intent becomes trickier when we are asked what is your intent for your personal grief.

In the grief community, there is a truth that when your world is blown up with big loss, everything you are, everything you do, comes into scrutiny as to whether you want to continue or change. Intent is shaken. Impact seems impossible.

Grief supports the necessity to take smaller steps. When we live with loss, the main intention is clear; how do we survive daily with such sadness. Our intention is to manage. Our impact is murky. Do we want our impact to be that we just endured the day? Or do we want our impact to be bigger? If we intend to create a life that makes our grief manageable, giving us the ability to feel joy and connection to those we love, the impact becomes clear. Our impact is a (new) life of purpose.

Truly, I believe the main factor in all this is energy. What amount of energy do I have to set intent and recognize impact. There is comfort in the agreement that baby steps are permissible. Encouraged. It can be achieved in the forming of behaviors. Choose one small thing today that could lead you to impact and do only that. Every day. Make it a routine such that it becomes easy. Then add another. And so on…

A word of caution I was also given about impact. Sometimes the best intentions fail. I share that, not to feel defeated to even try but rather to remind ourselves that the only control one has is in setting intention and working it. How impact turns out only the Universe knows. We must find peace in the pursuit.

Thanks Is Found in Gratitude

October 11, 2026 / Mama Fish / 0 Comments

A fond memory I have is the gathering of friends and family around our table at Thanksgiving. We would each take a turn sharing what we were most grateful for that year. I was always humbled when the kids’ friends would say it was being a part of our crazy family. How simple were those times, innocent of what our future was to bring to us. This year, I struggled with missing those happier moments, in the continued chaos of what is now.

Having had lunch with a close friend this week, as I walked back to my car, I thought of how grateful I am for our lunches. A tradition that has been going on for over ten years. Each time includes wine with a shared salad, and conversation that makes me laugh and gives me energy. I thought of my other friends, those who I have shared life with for decades, those who I share the path of grief with, those who I see occasionally and yet it feels like just yesterday. I am grateful for friendships.

It has been a tough year so I would be remiss to say how grateful I am for my qualified therapist who has shed light on many dark closets of my psyche and whose couch I look forward to sitting on each time to gain perspective, accepting challenges of how to move forward. I am grateful for her.

I am grateful that my daughter could make not one but two trips this year that were on her bucket list. That she enjoyed far away lands and came home with a feeling of peace and beautiful pictures. I relished in short jaunts to Canmore and to Mameo that filled my spirit and gave my fear of long-distance travel a reprieve. I am grateful for mini vacations.

For most of the year, I enjoyed the company and traditions of family and friends gathering at our local pubs for conversation and insight and support of our daily dramas. I got to know some superb staff at Earls and Cactus Club with one of my very favorite people. I am grateful for happy hour.

Amongst the commotion and the heartache this year has brought, I have enjoyed dreaming and planning new adventures. I have taken courses to expand my horizons and solo walks to soothe my grief and landed on a couple ideas that I anticipate will be a new direction of joy. I am grateful for hope.

Autumn is a time of reflection. Watching the leaves fall and aligning each one descending with something to let go of. Watching the rabbits fur change from brown to a creamy white, reminding us that change does happen. But it isn’t always ugly, just necessary. Feeling the air turn crisp, whispering it is time to go inwards and brew something nurturing. Fall is a beautiful season, a reminder of self-care. I am grateful for this season and all that it gives, all that it allows.

May this thanksgiving be filled with the soft colors of the season and the anticipation of gatherings with those you love. May these moments comfort your grief. And may your loved ones from the other side, come to be a part of all that you celebrate. I am grateful for each of you.

Mama Bear is Hurt

October 4, 2026 / Mama Fish / 0 Comments

I have no energy to keep up with the everyday tasks that are expected of me. I have no desire to do anything I used to enjoy. I find myself standing in my kitchen while I wait for the kettle to boil. But I forgot to turn it on. My grief has seemingly overtaken me.

I am consumed by the choices and actions of my family, none to which I have any control of. I found myself trying to explain to my therapist that this is what a mother does. She worries, she frets, she uses her power to ensure that all factors are aligned to the best interest of her family. To which my therapist gently asked, “where do you fit in?” I don’t.

Apparently, what I want for everyone, including me does not fit with the reality of our family dynamics. I am torn between do I bring everyone together for a huge pow-wow. Do I take each one aside to scream WTF? Or do I just ask myself what I want and move toward those answers. I might get a gold star in therapy if the latter is the path I choose. So, why can’t I? That is my assigned homework.

I left my therapists office to go sit in a park. Instead, I drove by it. I thought I’d wash my car. I drove into the bay and drove out without washing it. I ended up just driving on the highway thinking and did not miss the irony that I was behaving like Zane did when he needed to clear his head. I chuckled.

The problem is in my need that only when all my family is ok, am I ok. So, when I analyzed each member, most of them are fine. The members who are experiencing hardship, their battles are self-inflicted. They have made choices that they rushed into or that they had hoped would have an outcome to which did not happen. Their choices, not mine, and nothing I can fix.

When Zane was killed our family was blown up and left with the task to put a billion tiny broken pieces back together. I knew it would never be the same. What I have strived for was a mosaic of the love, the memories, the beauty of all that each of us had with him. To create a unified family of blood and friendship that honored and remembered Zane collectively.

What I am angry about is the apparent blindness to the consequence that certain actions have changed our family dynamics to a point of no return. The selfishness, the inability to look past one’s own needs, not giving any thought to if this will affect all of us. And it has. BIG time.

Grief gives us the freedom to try different means of coping, of surviving. And it gives us the grace to make mistakes as we move forward with our loss. What it doesn’t give us is a one plan fits all. As each of my family manoeuvres in their own grief, there was bound to be misunderstandings, confusion and disagreeable choices. I had never envisioned the depth of this possibility. Or the outcomes such may cause. I find myself at ground zero with the desire to run away and hibernate.

What I tried to do eight years ago, was recreate ‘la familia’ for all the right reasons. It is what I needed for my grief. It was what everyone needed then. I rested naively in the thought it would always be this way. I am now faced with the cutting truth that it is changing. Through this painful awareness, I have discovered the reason for my new and immobilizing anguish. I am grieving the family I had, that I will never have. Again.

How to Get Your Broom Back by Gabrielle St. George

September 27, 2026 / Mama Fish

The book, “How to Get Your Broom Back”, is not my typical grief reading subject, but it came to me across Instagram as a book every woman should read when she turns 50. Although I am older than the suggested demographic, I too liked the idea of ‘getting my broom back’. It was a great read, and I will argue with Gabrielle St. George, it is not only for women the age of 50 but any person of any age wanting to live life more fully. The eluded goal of any griever!

Gabrielle chooses humor to speak to a subject of how we tend to lose our personal mojo with age, responsibilities and generally trying to fit in better. She includes, in each chapter, ideas to consider, real people examples and homework of introspection to bring us back to our former glory. The ideal that we are ‘witches’ is more about the power to be ourselves than the actual supernatural kind making reading even more entertaining. ‘Getting your broom back’ becomes a passionate goal that arises as you read.

Some suggestions are easy like creating a space at home to relish in. One chapter wasn’t for me-I’ve long passed menopause, although she describes this stage in such light that I wish I had heard it ten years ago. Other chapters took a bit more digging; chapter three for instance was about rekindling your flame. “Your inner inferno called. It wants back in.” This chapter analyzed where we might have lost our fire or how and Gabrielle offers a 5-step check-in to ensure we can get it back.

My favorite chapter might be chapter six, ‘Everyday Magic’. “Your Tuesday called. It wants to be enchanted.” Ironic that she chose the day I hate most. In grief, Tuesdays are my kryptonite. I took it as a sign. It talks about creating ‘magic’ in everyday simplicity. Finding that perfect mug (even if it is chipped) to enjoy your first morning coffee. Sprinkle it with cinnamon, not for taste but for the ‘witchy power’ it gives you-success, passion and protection. Or cloves for luck and connection.

Or maybe my favorite chapter was, “It’s time to find your coven.” Gabrielle tells us that no witch flies alone. Eventually we need someone. She writes, “A coven is simply this: women who see you, believe you, and cheer you on.” The chapter includes how to sort through current friendships, why sisterhood matters and gives inspiring examples of women who have created their own covens. This is a chapter for any age, any gender, looking for a kinship of positivity.

This was a book that each chapter I would relate to how it could support my grief, my dreams and my wishes for my daughter. She and I have always kidded about our ‘witchy side’ and this book gently reminds you of who you are meant to be and how to both find and ride your broom. A perfect book for the upcoming Halloween season. Gabrielle’s whimsical advice on getting the most out of life, is a fun read that brings subtle revelations to “I can fly.” Even when you fly with grief.

The Need to Pet the Coos

September 20, 2026 / Mama Fish

At a recent gathering of fellow grieving mothers, it was brought up how often the desire to “just run away” occurs. We agreed that being alone is essential and that new places offer a certain freedom of living the day without being encircled by our truth. Distractions are easier. I think that is why travel, especially when dealing with grief, can become an addictive outlet. Just ask my daughter.

Our family travelled to Iceland and Ireland last year at this time. My daughter expressed how happy she was. This year, she went to Scotland. We didn’t understand this decision. Why a place that was like where she had just been. Why now when she has so many upcoming decisions here to focus on. Her insistence was something she didn’t even comprehend. She jested about wanting to pet a coo (a.k.a. cow) and see the Loch Ness Monster’s lake. All things abstract. She just knew she had to go.

The pictures and texts we have received from her on this solo journey prove she made the right decision. Her happiness traveling abroad to discover castles and myths and sweet foods show in her smile and in her captions. “I have never been happier” she writes.

She isn’t the only family member with an itching to travel. This fall, quite a few of our clan have sought a vacation. Each to a different place, for a different reason and as they book their flights and plan their itinerary, I wonder if they are aware that grief could be the motivation behind their excitement to go. It has been another tough year for all of us. The third quarter of this year, the hardest yet, and perhaps this wear and tear on our emotions is the undercurrent to needing to get away.

For me, travel always seems short-lived. When you return home from a trip, so does your grief, and usually accompanied by jet lag. It seems daunting. You have this incredible week or two that life seems grand and then you come home to the same old same old. Maybe travel needs to be part of the method of how to live with grief, not a hopeful remedy. Grief does not leave, although my family proves, it can take a vacation.

My question has morphed from why travel to how to bring travel home. How does one take the happy pieces of their trip and incorporate it into their regular life. How does the healing of travel become your everyday show rather than an advertisement to what you wish for. I wonder if one took the highlights of their trip and created that at home, if eventually, ‘real life’ would be filled with all the wonders of travel captured in the form of a photo or an object or a tradition borrowed and incorporated that reflect those blissful moments.

Trips remind us that we traveled with our grief and still discovered joy. That we explored new areas with our loved one’s spirit next to us. Perhaps that is the true addiction to travel; finding ourselves experiencing new things that our soul shares with those we miss in real time.

On my daughter’s trip, she took a pinch of Zane with her. A symbolic gesture that he is with her on her voyage. She is aware that grief does not stay home when you travel but that it can be calmed by the new adventures of each day. I believe our loved ones like us to travel and show up on our journeys as spiritual escorts. My daughter is fully aware that her brother sits next to her sharing her moments and cheering her on. That alone is worth a trip to pet the coos.

Placing Stones on Purpose

September 13, 2026 / Mama Fish

This past June, our grief group welcomed the summer break with an activity where we painted the name of our child onto small, flat stones. We then shared with everyone, so that all of us carried home a bag of stones, one for each child. The homework assignment was to find a random place to put the stone. It was suggested as a simple exercise that would bring reflection and mindfulness to our grief.

Zane’s stone was easy. I placed it in a flowerpot at the restaurant that he worked at, that Payton was married at, that Jon and I went to celebrate him on his death day this year. I felt it fitting to have Zane’s name on a stone at the place where once his entire life encircled.

The other three required some thought. You did not want to just chuck the stone bearing the name of one of your friend’s children, so I pondered all summer where I would place these. On a teary walk on a rainy-day morning, it hit me. I was at the reservoir. The place where Zane grew up enjoying all it offered. The place that I enjoyed for years with Tango. The place I now return to when I need connection. This was a place I was sure each boy would have enjoyed. I wanted to share with them what Zane had experienced.

I went back to the car and gathered the stones. Along the path, I recalled the first stories that their mother’s had shared with me about their child.

Karl, who loved camping and enjoyed the responsibility of ensuring that the fire ‘kept burning’, his stone was placed near the picnic bench that I shared many meals in the summer with my children. It was also the place our first grief group gathered for Candle Lighting Day.

Cole, who loved football and was the star attraction at the Stampede tailgate parties. His stone I placed at the tailgate of the boats that our family has walked by for years and taken dozens of pictures of the beauty of a simple sailboat floating in the water.

Sean, who loved urban art, an artist himself, sharing his talents throughout the city. His stone I placed on a cement structure commissioned by the city to be painted graffiti style. These works of art are scattered in the parking lot and the one I chose was the one I parked my car next to when taking Tango for his walks.

For each stone, my ceremony was simple. I gave it a light kiss, whispered, “your mom misses you” and placed it in its resting spot.

As I walked back to my car, I leaned into my grief. These boys, including my own, were all in their twenties when they left earth. I hold the same pain that their mothers do, the heaviness of how is this possible. And then I realized something, my heartache was a tinge different as I took that walk. I was caught up in the moment of finding and placing each stone in a spot, that my grief became a sweeter melancholy.

When we are mindful about remembering and honoring our loved ones, grief works with us to see life in richer deeper colors. And although there are tears and the missing them does not relinquish, spending purposeful time thinking of them, becomes a hug from heaven.

The Murder of Monday

September 6, 2026 / Mama Fish

For a year now, I have had the pleasure of spending Monday afternoon with my son-in-law. As we all navigate the transition of happily married, to newly separated, he and I would gather at one of our three favorite bars to share our grief, swap stories and basically hold each other up. One can argue who this was more important for. In the early days, I think it was both of us. That has changed.

Recent events and I guess time have created a shift. The pain of connection to what reminds him of what he had and has lost, has become too much. The slim possibility of reconciliation happening only for a moment here and there has supported his decision that to remove everyone reminding him of the past is what his grief requires. Including me.

I believe and respect that each has their own path to travel with grief; that each of us needs to do what our grief commands to survive because ignoring it brings major complications. So, I must accept that there has been thought, and this decision is necessary. For him.

For me, I feel like I am being punished for something I did not do. I have enjoyed his company, his quirkiness and his big heart for over a decade. He was Zane’s buddy that slept over; the two of them eating pizza and playing video games like twelve-year old boys. After Zane was killed, he instantly became a member of our family and from the first day was the steadfast rock in the shock and grief that consumed us. There was never a moment when I didn’t send a text or pick up the phone to say I need you, that he didn’t come running. Unknowingly, he became the buffer to the pain of not being able to hold Zane.

This last year, I felt we had our own deepened relationship, albeit complicated by the past, it was unique to the drama of our family. We share private jokes, compare stories about Zane’s adventures and because of our history, I can vent to someone who understands. Our Mondays became a sacred and anticipated hour of laughter over chardonnay and martinis.

There was a part of me that knew as life carried us forward our relationship would change, but end? That was never a consideration. After all, he was and will always be one of Zane’s best friends. Yes, we would move on, finding new opportunities and I felt these might be the stories he would share that would cause me to feel nostalgic about what might have been. Not once did I think that murdering our Monday afternoons would be an option.

The decision to ‘create distance’ to soothe his grief has increased mine. It is one more change that I did not choose. It is one more loss that I now hold. And, if I am being honest, it is one more person that I love that has estranged me to support their own emotions. This is heavy. I am not sure where in my universal soul plan, I agreed to hold grief so many times, so many ways, and with such vigor. I only know that it is loud and continuous. Like a bad movie, playing over and over.

Alas, I have no control but to wait, wishing, for an invitation to resurrect Mondays. In the meantime, I have a heart filled with memories of the antics we shared. It is what it is.

The Arrival of September Mourning

August 30, 2026 / Mama Fish

My daughter has instilled upon us the notion that September is the month we strive to reach each year. August is behind us; we have made through another year of anniversaries related to our grief. September brings new scenery, a different vibe, and a hint that soon we can hibernate. I have anticipated this month coming with hope until I recently read of how September is the worse month for grievers and that hit me. Have I got it all wrong?

The ‘experts’ state that September brings grievers a sense of dread. They suggest this month begins the anticipation of what hasn’t got done yet, what do we need to let go of. The energy of the new year, far behind us, tasks seem a bit more daunting. The lazy days of summer turn into the hustle of work, school and the upcoming holiday season. September shouts change. The kryptonite to grievers.

Even worse, September brings the awareness of the year ending and a new year beginning without our loved one. I remember thinking I didn’t want 2019 to arrive. It would be the first year without my boy (physically) a part of it. That had an emotional impact I still feel every year.

The articles I was reading all allude to this, that mourning requires special attention in the fall. The suggestions are obvious, take care of yourself, know that this too shall pass…things one would practice every day. And then there’s the idea that we focus on that ‘we are alive’. To Bounce Not Break writes, “Your person may be gone, but you are alive. You have a responsibility to not only stay alive, but to actually live. Your mother or father or beloved person who died wouldn’t want you to stagnate. You have the gift of more time. It’s okay to use it.”

Although each of us understands that in our minds, our heart struggles with this, especially in the early days. And the article does not further explain how one might do that with the guilt and the non-desire to try that comes with losing a child. So, I will take the last sentence, “It’s okay to use it”, as a reminder that I do have a life to which I can use to honor Zane by living a life he had imagined for me. Strength can be found in the notion of permission.

At the end of the day, I have decided that September is different for our family. Each of us, for years now, looks forward to having the hell of summer pass. Fall soothes our pain. The changes of color, represents what we can’t control but the transformation is beautiful. The crispness of the air wanting us to cuddle up and pour a pumpkin spice latte are self care actions we look forward to. Intuitively our family has treated September with the ideals suggested. Not for the popular reason it is a hard month, we missed that memo. No, for our family, September is about victory. About celebrating our tenacity, our resiliency. September is our month to exhale.

I Took My Soul on A Holiday

August 23, 2026 / Mama Fish

We all need time to be alone, but no one wants to be lonely. A danger of loneliness is it deters healing, while being alone gives space for soul introspection. Being alone, does not mean you are lonely. Lonely wants you to think they are related and brings distraction, the cousin of loneliness to ensure you don’t figure this out.

Distractions are the everyday happenings that turn our attention away from our soul. In the beginning we are told to look for distractions to ensure that our grief doesn’t overwhelm us. Perhaps that is where it begins. We put our grief on hold to focus on whatever the distraction is and when we do this enough times, we find ourselves looking for distractions rather than quiet moments. Our grieving soul is ignored.

There needs to be a balance between facing our grief, caring for our soul and following interruptions that take up all our energy. Often, my soul has asked, “can you find some time to be alone with me?” It received no reply until fate intervened and I was asked to house sit for a month.

With the blessing of my family, I packed my bags, grocery shopped for one and moved in. I brought reading material, tarot cards, projects I have been meaning to do for years, and some work. I did not pack distractions. Each morning, I would meditate in the sunny backyard sipping a hot lemon water. I would take walks in the community, exploring the shops and the quaint houses along main street. I had no one to report to and more importantly, no one to care for but my own soul.

The first couple days were easy; I am burnt out, so I just read and slept. As the days turned to a week, I found myself journaling, pondering my needs, sketching possibilities of what could I change or create to support my soul better. I accepted only a few distractions; invitations to meet family for happy hour, to which I enjoyed with excitement. Then I would re-enter silence.

In the quiet moments, we feel our loss; we cry, we sit with the brokenness of our heart. We know not how long it will last, so we bring in a distraction. When you are alone, there are fewer distractions and the uncomfortable feelings knock and enter easier. When you commit to being alone and letting those feelings run amok, the results are surprising.

A strange peace began to replace the anxiety of a jam-packed day. It was easier to identify what was a clear no rather than a muddled yes. I learned that I need the tranquility of nothing. I gained a deeper insight into my grief. I was never lonely; my soul kept me company.

By the end of the month, I found myself looking for inspiration, rather than distractions, limiting my commitments and harboring my new routine of sun, meditation and aloneness.

As I packed my bags to leave my short sabbatical, I questioned if I have the answers to how to keep this pace when I return to the demands of my true reality. I do know that how I feel after this reprieve is what I need. My soul had a holiday to which nurtured every part of me. With that, I promised my soul to find more ways to hang out together. Alone.