Lost and Found

The year 2025 marked the end of a long period of loss for me. Losing someone you love is hard. Grief is universal and, in my experience, unpredictable.

Over the years, my journey has included more loss than I imagined I would ever have to endure:

My mother died, way too young, in 1988, when I was just 30.

Her husband, my father, died of a broken heart two years later.

My husband died in 2009.

Three of my very best friends died in 2017, 2018, and 2021.

And then, my beloved partner died in 2022.

After each of these losses, I called Hospice of Santa Barbara and was soothed by compassionate and skilled therapists through talk, art, poetry, Reiki, and more. I honestly would not be as “whole” as I am today without that amazing community resource.

As I processed all these losses, I began to understand something about myself: how the deeper we love, the more intense our pain might be. I learned that when our hearts break, they can break open to let in even more love. I was also encouraged to make art to help me survive and chart a new path forward.

I grew up in Isla Vista before there was even one paved road there. My brothers and I ran wild and free through the fields and rode our bikes to the beaches, where we learned to swim and surf. My mother taught me to sew on her green Singer sewing machine when I was about 4 years old, and I’ve been sewing ever since. Since we did not have a lot of money when I was growing up, I made most of my own clothes, shirts, and quilts for my family and hemmed many pairs of jeans. I use my sewing talents to create things that are useful, creative, and often sentimental.

So, when my husband died, I sewed a shroud of fabrics he had collected on his many seafaring voyages around the world. His body was lovingly wrapped up in it just before he was cremated. 

After my partner died five years ago, I published a book we had written and illustrated together called ISLA, the Tiniest Mermaid in the Sea. Then, I wrote and produced nearly 24 weekly episodes of a radio show called Good Grief: Talk Radio for the Grieving Soul at KCSB, before moving on to write an opera libretto called Good Grief.

I have been a storyteller all my life. My mediums have been mostly fabric and film. I started on the stages of Goleta Valley Junior High and Dos Pueblos High School, then moved on to the Lobero Theatre and other venues around town as a singer in a band called The Shells. I ventured into the film industry, where I worked as a producer, director, location manager, editor, and writer. I’ve had the good fortune to work around the world doing what I love with amazing people. A few of whom I have also loved ― truly and deeply.

I don’t believe in a “one and only” kind of romantic love. My relationships have been like episodic TV, each lasting 7-15 years. Each man I loved and worked with was creative and curious. Not only did we share our lives, but we also worked together too, so every time they died, my livelihood ended as well. I had to pick myself up and keep going. That’s where I am now, at the tender young age of 69.

I am still trying to figure out how to honor the legacy of those I’ve loved and lost, while creating my own creative future.

With all of this in mind, I face a central question that guides my next steps: Who am I, now that you’re gone? I am a creative soul and a curious being — always wondering what’s around the corner, what message the offshore breeze might bring, or what song the ocean mermaids may be singing to me.

Some days, it’s hard to focus on creating a future because so much of my life is tied to the past and the creative juju I shared with all those amazing, creative men. One day recently, I found myself taking a shower with my socks on because grief is that unpredictable and complex.

My desire to transform grief into something good inspired me last fall. I was commissioned to make a very special piece from a collection of neckties belonging to the late husband of a 94-year-old widow. Her children surprised her with a one-of-a-kind quilt stitched entirely from these ties. Instead of sitting in a closet, they now provide her with a daily “warm hug” and a tangible connection to her family’s history. And I’ve got a new side hustle called Woven Keepsakes, because I know how hard it is to deal with clothes and other things our loved ones leave behind. 

I’m also working on a project called the Museum of Eternity Art Cemetery ― a digital repository for all the unsold paintings and other artworks that exist in our world, next to boxes of tiaras and ghosts.

While I pursue these next projects, I’m thinking that perhaps life is like a pinball machine. When we are born, we shoot out into the world and bounce about, sometimes very intentionally, but sometimes very randomly.

Like how on New Year’s Eve, I met a man at a party who asked me, “How have you survived all this loss?” That simple question led me to write this article.

Losing someone you love is hard. Period. 

But I’ve found that grief, though hard, can be good, and it can transform us.

This is why I continue to write and create. By sharing my story, I hope others might find comfort and understanding in this wacky, unpredictable world.

I continue to use the Singer I learned on many moons ago. Every time I use it, I think of my mama and all she taught me. Now, I’m teaching my 4-year-old great-niece how to sew on that machine too, sharing stories about who her great-grandmother was and honoring her memory. In the end, perhaps it is our story that matters the most and helps us remember who we are.

Because in the words of the late, great Polish-Lithuanian poet Czesław Miłosz, in his poem “On Prayer, “we will all walk that velvet bridge all the same.”