Grief catches me off guard, taps me on the shoulder when I don’t expect it. Today at my office in the midst of insurance pre-authorizations, my highlighters and Zebra pen stopped me in my tracks.
When I was little, I would sit in my dad’s office and color with his highlighters. He was an insurance agent and his amazing secretaries would make copies for me of a form that had a car on it, that he would use to mark damage when someone came by to file a claim. These were my favorite coloring sheets of all time and I poured a lot of time and energy into coloring these pages to perfection. I remember pulling open his desk drawer and coming across Zebra pens. In my adult life, those are my go-to pens, because they remind me of him.
Today I suddenly and unexpectedly thought of my dad. It was minutes after I had submitted our National Aphasia Association bio for edits. It was minutes before I exchanged updates with an SLP at Mayo for my patient who is part of Mayo’s aphasia research.
At the end of his life, he couldn’t talk. And because of him, I made it my mission to give that back to people who lost it, with the people who believe in the power of communication as much as I do.
Grief catches me off guard, but it also drives me. And sometimes when you least expect it, it taps you on the shoulder.
The sequel was my favorite 