A Week of Outfits: Alison Piepmeyer

Just read Emma Straub’s (well everything, but for now, first:) THIS TIME TOMORROW and revel in memories tears and laughter, all the (cycling) grief phases fir the first year~ majorly.
PS. Grief is like layers of onion. Losing a parent is always too soon. And you will not overly lose it. In fact carve out somevtime, but you’ll see what e canmit actually ugly cry and jeen for as long as you feel you will!!
PS. If you need to stop BREATHE, it seems we tell kids to breath when they cry bc you cannot all out cry and breathe; Hmm
PPS. So sorry for your loss.

@Joanna Goddard how about another post from Alison on how she does her fabulous hair!

OK thank you Alison for finding my fall loafers!

In a similar boat with grief. I’m on the cusp of losing my mother to dementia, have a 4 year old and a 3 month old. I want to both talk about it and distract myself. It’s such a weird and awful feeling. The kids help. Still hurts though.

I lost my mom at the start of the summer. It was quick and unexpected. I live 32 hours by plane from where she lives so I was not able to make it to see her last breath. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the phone call from the nurse telling me that my mom had died. I am now in therapy trying to work through my triggers. I start crying at the weirdest things. So thank you for your article. It was almost a relief for me. I love this newsletter. Thanks for all that you do

Hahahah—my hair Pinterest board is so similar. I go straight down the Alexa Chung hair rabbit hole and show a hundred pictures of her bob to my stylist. I’m so sorry about the sudden loss of your dad. Thank you so much for sharing. As my parents age I imagine my reaction(s) to their deaths. And know that I won’t know what it will actually feel like until the moment is actually here. However I appreciate hearing stories of grief and sending love out to the grieving. As the Quakers say, I’m holding you in the light.

<3<3<3

What a beautiful woman! I just love the pictures in the overalls. Gosh, that reminds me of my set of overalls in the early 90’s. Sigh. I was about 19 or 20 at that time. How quickly life passes. My dad died 6+ years ago. Sending love.

Love *to*all of you…I hope you know what I meant…

Lovely style inspo!

My heart goes out to all of you who have unexpectedly lost parents in the last few years and I feel deeply grateful to still have mine, my dad especially. He was the subgroup of a subgroup with a specific heart condition that was at the highest risk for both Covid and severe adverse reaction from the vaccine, which he insisted on getting all doses. Having the getting affairs in order conversation with my mom was
really hard. But he’s still here and it’s a good reminder to make every time together intentional.

Love you all of you.

Cup of Jo just always seem to know what I need – my Mom died two weeks ago and I am desperate desperate to read others experiences with losing a parent. It feels so lonely because we do not talk about death very well or very much in our culture and I’m just looking around like, why didn’t anyone prepare me for this?! You just feel crazy and lonely, lonely lonely. This was a little light in the dark, thank you Alison and Cup of Jo.

There was so much that I loved about this post – the style! the observations about grief! The bit about compartmentalizing really resonated with me and is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Compartmentalization can be a necessary strategy for responding to grief while still attending to all the parts of our lives that require our attention and energy. But there’s a lot of power that can come from sharing when we are going through a difficult time, even when people ask an innocuous “how are you?” and are not quite expecting a real answer from you. Thank you so much for sharing, Alison!

Gosh, it’s been 7 years since my dad was killed instantly in a car accident but your story is so relatable nonetheless. I’ll never forget the phone call, the drive to be with my mom, or pretty much everything that happened in that immediate aftermath. We had friends in town visiting us. We were driving home from a birthday dinner for their daughters and I took the call from my brother. I remember asking him repeatedly, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Now every year when those girls have another birthday, I think about how sad I am that they had to be with us on that day and witness our trauma firsthand. It’s all just so… SMH.

All that to say — grief ebbs and flows and changes as the years go by. At first I had so much guilt any time I laughed or had fun or forgot for a couple of minutes/hours that I was supposed to be sad. One way I grieved was by talking about him a lot; sharing stories brought our whole family comfort. The pain was so acute at first, but I did get to the point where memories of him bring lots of smiles, and I love telling my kids about him. I love buying his favorite drink/candy/etc and thinking of my memories. I feel grateful for the time I had with him, and I try very hard not to focus on that horrible day of the accident or the moments we didn’t get to have. Most of the time, it works.

Thinking of you on this journey. <3

Alison, so sorry for your loss! I’ve been there and it’s so difficult but you will get through it. Wishing you peace, courage and strength!

I lost my dad last December and one visualization that helped me came from Mari Andrew’s blog post “Grief baby.” Looking at our grief as if it were a newborn. My grief baby is almost one year old and I have also found that I’m ready for therapy.
https://mariandrew.bulletin.com/grief-baby/

No, you won’t lose it. Over the past months you have been working it all out inside, every single day. Grief is not like on TV. It is a slow-burn, not a forest fire. There will be quiet days and sad days and days when you laugh at memories. The numbness passes and is replaced by a space that you never had before. I promise: it will pass.

“And other times life feels totally normal. And then I hate that it’s normal.”

This.

So, so lovely and real. Thank you!
(Also, we LOVE love love FIP radio. We live in Geneva and hear it all the time. When we play it in the U.S., our family is like “what the heck is this??”)

My dad died a year ago next week; yesterday was the one year anniversary of the last time we were all together as a family (to celebrate my birthday) and the two year anniversary of his liver transplant. I too blurt out irrationally “my dad died last year,” almost as a coping mechanism. I think the timing of this profile was a gift.

Realizing this is the same friend with the great Ethan Hawke story? Loved how she was getting coffee with her dad and his comment was so funny. I’m sorry for her loss.

Thanks for sharing your looks and more importantly, talking about your dad.

My dad had a heart attack and died a year and a half ago. It was a Sunday morning and I had just texted with him shortly before. My mom suddenly called screaming. It was so surreal.

I had to fly to her the next day to do all the terrible, weird things you have to do when someone dies, and bring her back home with me. For months I only cried once I was in bed at night, after I’d taken care of everyone/everything else so I totally hear going into execute mode and compartmentalizing — my son was 1.5 at the time.

I heard somewhere (I probably read it on this blog 🫣) that your grief doesn’t get smaller but your life gets bigger. That’s been true for me.

It’s so nice that your son reminds you to talk about him. For all of you who loved your dad, and also for others. I think the benefit of grief is it helps us relate to other people better. Reading about your experience makes me feel a little more connected to a stranger.

The week after my dad died, my husband and I found out I was pregnant with our daughter. Her name is Billy after him, and she has a heart shaped birthmark on her leg that I like to think of as a love note from my dad. Every time someone asks about her name I get to talk about him and even though she never met him, she’ll carry parts of him her whole life.

I’m so sorry for your immeasurable loss. Thank you again for sharing.

I know just what you mean about wanting to tell people – my dad dying was so universal but also so shocking. How could I leave that out when people asked how I had been?

Heads up: what has been so hard for me was watching the other grandads with their children when my boy started school this year. I know my dad – who adored my son – would have been so involved. But I also realise that, had he not had the cancer, it doesn’t mean life would have necessarily been easy. Other things could have happened. He might have died from something completely random – car crash? Anything. Life is a risk.

And for me, that thought is comforting. Life rolled out the way it had to for him and I’m so grateful he was my dad and we loved each other so much.

My dad died in January. I went to see my psychiatrist who chided me for not taking my ADHD medication. I was like – “you don’t understand. My meds make me productive. I don’t want that. I want to be SAD and do nothing. I want to grieve unproductively.” The grief is everything and nothing all at once. There is no part of my identity that hasn’t been shaped in some way by my father. How is that person just now gone? Sometimes I just want to scream.

My deepest sympathies on the loss of your dad. Wishing you peace.
Love your haircut, and agree that Abbott Elementary is wonderful.

I am so sorry to hear about your Dad.