Columns

I went back to work a little over a month after losing Austen, my 9-year-old daughter who passed away from complications of Dravet syndrome. Many asked me how I could do it, but the decision to go back to the classroom was never a question in my mind.

This June, for Dravet Syndrome Awareness Month, many articles are going to give you statistics, numbers, and graphs that show how horrible this disease is. I want to paint you a different picture. I want to encourage you to remember children who’ve fallen victim to Dravet syndrome in the…

I made a deal with my late daughter, Austen, when she was just 1 year old. The deal was that she’d make it to 10. That was because she had Dravet syndrome, and statistics showed that most deaths attributed to the syndrome occur before a child is 10…

I’ve known since I was a small child that whenever I pass, I want to go to a specific cemetery. It sounds odd, I know, but five generations of family ahead of me have gone into that same plot of land. Imagining joining them as part of the sixth generation…

When my daughter Austen passed away last summer, I honestly believed I wouldn’t be able to survive the pain. She was 9 years old, and I’d spent eight and a half of those years focused on keeping her healthy and alive through her Dravet syndrome. The pain was all-consuming;…

Yearbooks are like mirrors that give us a glimpse into the past. As a teacher, I love looking at them. During the school year, I’m so focused on the daily ins and outs of teaching my students that I often feel like I’m on autopilot. Sitting down with that year’s…

My family moved to Colorado when Austen, my daughter who last summer passed away at age 9 from complications of Dravet syndrome, was just a year old. We moved to get her access to medical cannabis there, and while I don’t regret that choice, it was hard to take…

Austen, my 9-year-old who passed away from Dravet syndrome last summer, was the only one of my children I named. Addisen, her 17-year-old sister, and Atlas, her 11-year-old brother, were named by their grandmother and father, respectively. So when I unexpectedly found myself pregnant with our third child, one…

None of my children are exactly alike, and I like it that way. Each has an individual, vibrant personality; while one might like theater, another favors video games. Siblings, whether they share the same DNA or not, are not carbon copies of one another. So even though I enjoyed…

The first year after losing a loved one is filled with many firsts. I anticipated many of these moments being hard after Austen, my 9-year-old daughter, passed away last summer due to complications of Dravet syndrome. I was prepared for Halloween, Christmas, and her birthday to rip the wound…