Sandy Jorgenson

So, women, I’m talking to you — give yourself permission to love every inch of you. Honor your body, and meet it where it is. To those of you who’ve given birth: you’re forever changed. Relinquish the idea that you need to get your body back to looking the way it did before your baby was born.

When a bereaved mother is left alone, how deep into the recesses of her mind does she wander? Does she surface for air? Does she want to come out at all?

You'll have to excuse me while I sit myself down for one stern-ass pep talk about the importance of trusting my gut, having the courage of my convictions, and marching bodly ahead in my resove to absorb every last minute I get with my growing girl, knowing that never again will these days be upon me.

My daughter was just reaching her first birthday before the dense fog of postpartum depression started to lift off of me. I didn’t realize it right away, though – and I certainly hadn’t even realized I was suffering from PPD at all.

Sitting now on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I find myself taking stock of my life thus far, shoving my youth under a microscope while I ask myself this one thing: Am I careening full-tilt toward my final days on this earth, or am I only just getting started here?

Why are people so mean?

This article is the second in a two-part series.

Death, we know because it’s drilled into us from an early age, is a natural part of life.

Two years ago, I had a two-year-old daughter who’d never met her grandfather.