11/27/25 (Thanksgiving Day)

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Back in 2018, when I chose Thursday as the day to write This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, I didn’t think about it always falling on Thanksgiving day. I’d like to take credit for that as a moment of brilliance, but I didn’t. It is pure happenstance. But ultimately, it’s a good thing.

I can tell you that, after the year we had in 2024, it hasn’t been easy to feel thankful. Michael’s horrible accident and death, and the deaths of other family members that followed, has created the most difficult time of my life. This blog has helped. And so did what happened last Saturday.

I was in an event at the Waukesha Public Library, a fundraiser for the Friends of the Library. The event was dubbed, “Author Maggie Ginsberg In Conversation With Author Kathie Giorgio”. I was happy to do it. Maggie had been “in conversation” with me twice already, at the launch of Don’t Let Me Keep You and at an appearance at Daydream Believer Books in Lake Mills. She was the interviewer, I was the interviewee, and this time, we were switching roles. I got to ask the questions, rather than answer them.

During our conversation, and then the Q & A that followed, someone asked about the meaning behind the title of Maggie’s novel, Still True. Maggie told this story:

During a difficult time in her life, one of those times where you feel like the floor is out from under you, the world is an alien place, and you just might never recover, a friend came to see her. The friend verified that Maggie likely didn’t want to talk about this time, so she asked instead about Maggie’s children. About her career. About other things in her life that Maggie loved.

Then the friend said, “Well, those things are still true, aren’t they.”

Maggie was gobsmacked. And as she told the story, so was I. I was very glad we were in the Q & A portion, because I was simply stunned into silence.

So here then are the things in my life, which has felt like the floor was taken out from under me, the world is an alien place, and grief so hard and deep, I thought I might never recover, but that are still true:

*It is still true that I have four amazing, loving children. Christopher, Andy, Katie, and Olivia. I also have the woman I call my daughter-by-proxy, Rayne, such a part of our lives that we have to, want to, include her as part of the family. They have all circled around me, as I have reached my arms around them.

*It is still true that I am surrounded by friends, students, and clients, some people who embody all three roles, who have stuck with me. The students and clients, in particular, have put up with my uneven schedule as emergencies happened while Michael was still alive, and personal crashes happened to me after his death. During that time, my life became about teaching in the morning, running to the hospital or rehab or taking Michael to appointments in the afternoon, then teaching in the evening and reading manuscripts into the night. These students and clients formed a meal chain. When I finished with my last morning client and ran out of the house to go to Michael, I always found a lunch already packed for me in a cooler by my garage. And I also found dinner, which I’d only have to heat up when I got home. Students also cleaned my house. I have never felt more cared for. During this entire time, AllWriters’ has not suffered. Everyone stayed beside me, making sure I could continue to do what I do best.

*It is still true that I have a roof over my head, even though it’s only me now that keeps it there.

*It is still true that during the time since Michael died in June of 2024, my novel, Don’t Let Me Keep You, was released, and my poetry collection, Let Me Tell You, Let Me Sing!, was released. It is also true that another poetry collection, dedicated to Michael, The Birth Of A Widow, will be released in early 2026, and my next novel, Unique In All The World, will be released, likely in 2027, but the date is not determined yet. Which means that, despite a 3-month period where the only thing I could write was this blog, once a week, and even that was a challenge, and this was the only time I ever found myself in my entire life unable to write, it has returned to me. It is the part I identify myself as more than anything else: writer. And so it is still true that, despite all that has happened, I am still here.

I am so grateful for Maggie’s words, that allowed me to realize this, and encouraged me to look at what is still a constant in my life, instead of focusing so hard on what has been lost.

However.

I have not become the embodiment of a Hallmark Christmas movie. I decided, a bit ago, that we would have our Christmas tree in the condo this year. I did not put it up last year – I simply couldn’t. Michael loved Christmas, partly because his birthday is two days after Christmas, so he pushed that all the hoopla was about his birth, not…well, you know. But this year, I said, we’ll do it.

Earlier this week, late at night, when I was getting ready for bed, I sat on my seat in our reclining loveseat, and looked at the spot where the tree would go. And I realized this.

The last time the tree stood, an orange plump cat named Edgar Allen Paw, he of the multiple toes, took his place under and behind the tree, a place he declared as his own for fourteen years. In front of the fireplace, a small gray cat, whose size did not keep her from being queen of the household, took her place under the stockings and in front of the heat. Muse’s spot was there for twenty years. Huddled by my feet because she was scared of the Christmas tree, so scared she wouldn’t even grab her favorite food, French fries, that I put under it for her, was Ursula, our dog. Only with us for 7 years, she nonetheless had her own spot too, and is also solidly wedged in my heart. Beside me, in his seat on the reclining loveseat, was Michael. Alive and well. Writing on his computer, playing a word game on his phone, listening to an old time radio drama, watching the television, and smiling at me – all at the same time.

Instead, this year, when the tree goes up, there will undoubtedly be two young cats, Oliver and Cleo(catra), who I have named The Orange Terror Twins From Different Mothers, trying to climb the tree, batting the ornaments, and causing havoc. Which means I’ve devised a plan to put a hook in the exposed rafter above the tree and tie the top of the tree to that hook.

All of this means that my life is very different now. But it also means this:

While the floor was pulled out from under me, there is a new floor there. It’s different, but it’s solid. While the world is indeed alien from what I used to have, it’s becoming more familiar every day, and has many familiar parts to it that are still here. And while I am still sad, while there are still moments that literally knock me to my knees, I am recovering.

Above all, I am still me.

One foot in front of the other. I’m aching, but I am moving forward.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

From the past:

The present: