This morning I am sitting on the porch at Mohonk Mountain House. The lake is still. The mountains are quiet. Birds seem to be carrying on their own conversations.

My son Patrick’s third album, Made You Look, is playing from beginning to end.

Today is also his thirty-fourth birthday.

Thirty-four years ago today, at twenty-six years old, I gave birth to him. Listening to his third album this morning, I find myself remembering the day he was born.

I was also raising a daughter who was not yet two years old. Looking back now, those years feel like they passed in a blur. I don’t think any new parent truly knows what they’re doing. You simply love your children, hope you’re getting enough right, and keep showing up.

One of the unexpected gifts of having a son who writes songs is that I have been given a window into his inner world. Most parents spend a lifetime wondering what their children are thinking as they move through life. Patrick has spent much of his life putting those thoughts, questions, joys, heartbreaks, and experiences into music.

The little boy in the photograph he shared this week is standing in our attic with the birthday guitar his dad had given him. It looked almost bigger than he was. At the time, it was simply one of those ordinary moments parents rarely think to hold onto. Looking back now, it feels like the beginning of a story none of us could have imagined.

Music filled our home. Eric Clapton. Classical music. And, because of the era, plenty of Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

Looking back, it almost seems inevitable.

By thirteen, Patrick had been named Best Young Blues Musician by the Robert Johnson Foundation. He played the Montreal Jazz Festival and shared the stage with the legendary B.B. King, who became something of a grandfather figure to him. When B.B. King died, Patrick’s heart was broken.

He wasn’t worried about SAT scores. He had one dream: to attend NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. He was accepted through early admission, and the rest has unfolded one song at a time.

Since then, I have traveled more miles than I can count to hear him perform. I have watched audiences sing his songs back to him. Music has taken him to places I never imagined when I first watched that little boy carrying a guitar almost as large as himself.

He gets some of that from his dad, who played in bands to help pay his way through medical school. Music has always been woven into our family.

Listening to Made You Look today, I hear something different.

This isn’t simply another collection of songs. It feels like the work of someone entering another season of life. A husband. A father. Someone paying attention.

Patrick wrote today that meaning doesn’t usually arrive all at once. It accumulates across ordinary days, in moments so familiar we often stop noticing them. Reading those words, I found myself thinking that perhaps parenting is much the same. We spend years living the ordinary without realizing we are building a life.

When I listen across Patrick’s catalog, from “High Hope,” which found its way into Grey’s Anatomy, to “Glitter,” which has become an anthem for so many carrying grief, to songs he has written for other artists, I don’t just hear music.

I hear his life unfolding.

I hear him growing a garden.

I hear the little boy in our attic becoming the husband and father he is today.

As his mom, what a privilege it has been to have that window into his heart.

I wish every parent had that kind of window.

Music is universal. Our tastes may differ, but music has an extraordinary way of bringing people together. It helps us remember. It helps us understand one another. Sometimes, it even helps us find our way back to ourselves.

Today I celebrate my son.

His thirty-fourth birthday.

His third album.

The little boy with the birthday guitar who followed one dream all the way to New York.

The husband and father he has become.

From this quiet porch overlooking the lake at Mohonk, surrounded by mountains and morning light, I find myself doing exactly what his album title invites all of us to do.

To slow down.

To pay attention.

To look.

Happy birthday, Patrick.

Congratulations on Made You Look. Thank you for inviting us to look a little more closely at the ordinary moments that become a life.

With all my love,

Mom

Patrick Droney’s new album, Made You Look, is available wherever you listen to music. If you’re discovering his music for the first time, I hope you’ll listen to the album from beginning to end. “Math of Us,” with Kelsea Ballerini, and “Growing a Garden” are two beautiful places to begin

One of my favorite parts of being a therapist is getting to know the person, not just the problem.

Over the years, I’ve found myself returning to the same thoughtful questions. They don’t sound particularly therapeutic, yet they often open the door to meaningful conversations.

How do you spend your free time?

What are you reading?

What podcasts do you enjoy?

What do you watch?

Who or what do you follow on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Substack?

Do you ever use ChatGPT to think through your life or relationships? If so, what kinds of questions do you ask?

What are you curious about?

What brings you peace?

What has been taking up the most space in your mind lately?

What matters to you?

These questions are more than conversation starters. They offer a window into the stories we tell ourselves, the relationships we value, and the lives we are creating.

The books we read, the podcasts we listen to, the people we follow, the conversations we engage in, the content we consume, and even the questions we ask artificial intelligence all have the potential to shape us. They influence how we think about ourselves, the people we love, our relationships, and the world around us. Some influences expand our perspective. Others quietly narrow it.

This isn’t about judging what we consume. It’s about becoming aware of it.

You don’t need a therapist to begin asking these questions.

Ask them of yourself with a pen and a notebook. Ask them over coffee with a friend, during a walk with your partner, at dinner with a sibling, or in conversation with your parents or your children. You may be surprised by what you learn about someone you’ve known for years—or about yourself.

Curiosity deepens understanding. Understanding deepens connection.

So I’ll leave you with one final question.

What matters to you?

One of the grief theories I return to most often in my clinical work is the Dual Process Model of Coping developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut. Whether I am working with someone grieving the death of a loved one, infertility, dementia, chronic illness, or family estrangement, I find myself returning to this model because it reflects how people actually experience loss.

Figure 1. Illustration inspired by the Dual Process Model of Coping developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut.

The Dual Process Model teaches us that healthy adaptation is not linear. We naturally oscillate between two forms of coping.

Loss oriented coping involves confronting the grief itself. We think about the person or relationship, replay conversations, long for what once was, question what happened, and feel the pain of the loss.

Restoration oriented coping focuses on rebuilding life. We return to work, establish new routines, nurture relationships, discover new meaning, and gradually adapt to a life we never expected to live.

The key word is oscillation.

Healthy grieving is not about staying in one place. It is the movement back and forth between these two ways of coping. Some days we are immersed in grief. Other days we find ourselves laughing with friends, working in the garden, taking a trip, or finding joy in everyday moments. Then, without warning, a birthday, holiday, family gathering, or familiar photograph pulls us back into the grief.

This movement is not failure.

It is how adaptation happens.

Based upon the framework Dr. Joshua Coleman has recently shared from his forthcoming book, I was struck by how naturally these ideas fit together. Although the full book has not yet been published, the framework he has introduced describes emotional experiences that many estranged parents recognize, including shock, panic, shame, obsession, collapse, stabilization, integration, and reconstruction.

Figure 2. Framework shared by Dr. Joshua Coleman from his forthcoming work on family estrangement. Included here for educational discussion.

As I reflected on these concepts, I found myself viewing them through the lens of the Dual Process Model.

To me, these two frameworks answer different but complementary questions.

Dr. Coleman’s framework helps us understand the emotional landscape that many individuals experience following family estrangement. The Dual Process Model helps explain how people adapt while living within that landscape.

Even as someone begins to stabilize or reconstruct a meaningful life, they may suddenly find themselves pulled back into grief by a birthday, holiday, family milestone, or unexpected reminder. Likewise, someone overwhelmed by grief may still experience moments of laughter, connection, hope, or peace.

Both realities can exist at the same time.

This is particularly important in ambiguous losses such as family estrangement. Unlike death, there is no socially recognized ending. Hope, uncertainty, longing, grief, and resilience often coexist. Parents may continue to love their adult child deeply while simultaneously learning how to build a meaningful life without the relationship they once imagined.

As clinicians, we often reassure clients that healing is not about “moving on.” I have never found that phrase particularly helpful. Instead, healing is about learning to move between grieving and living. It is about allowing sorrow and restoration to exist side by side.

That is why I believe the Dual Process Model remains one of the most compassionate and clinically useful grief theories we have. It reminds us that oscillation is not a sign that someone is stuck. It is evidence that they are adapting.

Whether the loss is death, dementia, infertility, chronic illness, or family estrangement, healing rarely follows a straight line. It more closely resembles a pendulum, moving between loss and restoration as we slowly construct a life that can hold both grief and hope.

As scholarship on family estrangement continues to evolve, I look forward to reading Dr. Coleman’s forthcoming book. I suspect it will offer another valuable contribution to our understanding of family estrangement and its impact. Integrating emerging work on estrangement with well-established grief theories may ultimately provide clinicians and families with an even richer understanding of how people adapt to profound relational loss.

Mother’s Day weekend can feel joyful, sad, complicated, or filled with dread for many people for a variety of reasons. Perhaps more important is not becoming a stranger to yourself in the process.

I started the weekend attending a local herb fair at a museum where I purchased pottery by Amy Holland of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Amy Holland’s art, and Amy herself, an extraordinary woman, led me into the weekend paying attention with open eyes and an open heart. I planted container gardens afterward. I love lavender and must have planted fifty lavender plants this spring along with many others I love. There is something deeply rewarding about working in a garden and creating beauty with your hands.

I am fortunate to have nurtured meaningful friendships over the years. I received and sent lovely messages this weekend to people I am very fond of. They matter. Staying connected matters.

After a full day of gardening, I spent Mother’s Day with my 85 year old mother. I am a daughter of dementia. My mother is still there somewhere. As she slowly fades, it feels even more important to be present with her. It is a great joy to be her daughter.

I am also fortunate to have three adult children, grandchildren, and an amazing husband. My children are building lives of their own in different cities and today I chose to spend the day with my mother.

My life is not perfect. I make every attempt to fill my life with meaning as life changes. It is important for women to honor their own sense of history. You owe that to yourself. Don’t spend your life chasing what may not be meant for you at this particular time. Find what brings you joy. Keep learning, growing, loving, creating, and tending to the people who matter. You matter too. Perhaps most of all.

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Christine ❤️

Disenfranchised grief and ambiguous loss often surface in blended families and after divorce—especially when half-siblings lose someone they may not have known well, yet still grieve deeply. There is remarkably little written about this population or the complexity of these losses.

In this piece, Fern Schumer Chapman—who has written extensively and published multiple books on sibling relationships, estrangement, and family fracture—captures this experience with honesty and compassion, giving language to a grief that is so often unrecognized. This essay was written after she read Patti Davis’s reflection in Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, following the death of her half-brother, Michael Reagan.