Lynn Walsh

Lynn Walsh

Our Friend Has Died

It’s been almost two months since my friend Tommy fell to the floor at his friend’s house in Milton, Delaware and suffered a fatal heart attack. What began as a typical evening of socializing among these transplanted Delawareans turned deadly in a split second. Hardly the picture of health- Tommy was overweight, a smoker; nevertheless, no one expected death to strike so suddenly and violently. At age 63, Tommy was just a year older than me, making him my first contemporary to pass. And leaving me unsettled in ways I am trying to comprehend. Countless others have written volumes about death and loss and grief far more eloquently than I, and yet the questions remain. How do we get past the grief: mine, ours, Janet’s? I tell myself what I tell my suffering patients: There is no way around grief, only through it. Navigating this level of loss means something different to every person experiencing it. For me, I will begin by remembering Tommy, his antics, and his goodness, and I will say his name. I will remind myself and Janet that grief is not linear, nor is it predictable. It is indiscriminate in its assaults. ...

Lynn Walsh

I am a wife, mom to two wildly different adult daughters who came to us through adoption, and a clinical social worker. Retired from full time work, I'm able to write for the first time since being the co-editor of the St. Al's Express in 1974, when we used a mimeograph machine to crank out our publication. I live on Long Island with. my husband and a bevy of fluffy critters, none of whom I could live without.