I'll Tell You All About It When I See You Again
One last story about how our loved ones never truly leave us, a new Substack newsletter with so much to teach us, and as always, book and health news
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Real Madrid vs Real Sociedad, May 25, 2025. I wasn’t surprised when I sat down to find #10—Eric’s soccer number—right in my field of vision. What did surprise me was what came next.
Welcome all! I’m honored to have you here. Many of you have found me through my memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, published by Motina Books in February 2025, or some of my other published work. Others are here thanks to our literary magazine, In a Flash, through the Family Heart Foundation, or because of recommendations from other Substack newsletters. As always, I’m beyond grateful for your support.
Wanderlust
Last month, I shared photos of beautiful Malaga, Spain, and mentioned we’d be moving on to Madrid, where attending a Real Madrid soccer match was to be the crowning jewel. And it was! But first, a taste of Madrid as we found it:
Inspiration Everywhere
To wrap up last month’s conversation about “sightings,” let me fill you in on our afternoon at the Real Madrid game. I looked forward to seeing Mbappé in action (probably RM’s most famous player) and to seeing soccer played on a level I’ve never experienced.
What I didn’t expect was that the whole day would be devoted to a farewell to #10. While that was Eric’s number throughout his high school career—
—it’s also the number of the Croatian footballer Luka Modrić, widely considered one of the best midfielders of all time, who played for RM for the last time that day.
I never imagined that before the game started, they’d roll out a giant-sized number 10 jersey at midfield. I never imagined there would be an extended tribute to #10 as he left the field. And I never imagined I’d capture this brief video, which has such significance for me.
These lines from “See You Again,” the song by Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth, ran through my mind for the rest of the day:
It’s been a long day without you my friend/I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.
Of course, I know this player bidding everyone farewell isn’t Eric (though even the name on the back of the jersey could be read as Eric if I let my eyes blur a bit). Instead, it felt like a grin from that place where his spirit lives, a “Hey, Mom, you knew I’d be here!”
On second thought, maybe I don’t need to tell Eric about this when I see him again. He’s all around me, everywhere. Even in Madrid.
In what I used to call, when doing speech-language therapy involving Social Thinking concepts, “a whopping topic change,” let’s shift gears for a moment.
My dear friend
has started a new newsletter here on Substack, Creatively ADHD.
Yes, she’s a friend, but that doesn’t change how incredibly valuable I think what she shares is to the creative community, to those with ADHD, and to all of us, really, because doesn’t understanding ourselves and each other in a deeper way benefit us all?
Kate writes in her welcome post, “If ADHD has ever complicated or undone your creative process, or if you’re simply intrigued about its influence on creativity, I’ve made this Substack for you. And me.”
What you’ll find—what I’ve found—in her subsequent posts has been a valuable combination of information (and unmasking the disinformation) about ADHD, interviews with creatives with ADHD, reviews of memoirs that may or may not be directly related to ADHD but explore creativity and the factors that challenge it (hint: grief is a big one), and frankly more than I can hope to summarize here.
Here’s the thing: this is a newsletter I didn’t know I needed until it landed in my inbox. In these days of information coming at us through a metaphorical firehose, Creatively ADHD is something I look forward to receiving and settling in to read from the first word to the last. I suspect you may feel the same.
News of the Day
BOOK NEWS
Publication of The Full Catastrophe continues to offer me so many beautiful opportunities to talk about its themes of belonging, navigating grief and uncertainty, and living with grief beside joy. Here’s what’s new since my last newsletter. I hope you’ll check these out, then follow the writers and podcasters and reviewers who so generously offered their time and platforms.
This month I have so much to look forward to but not as many “clickable” shares as I have in past newsletters.
I’ve recorded a couple of podcasts that are forthcoming (I’ll save those for when they’re out in the world).
A review and an interview—so grateful for both—are in the works but not ready to share.
And I have two pieces of BIG NEWS that I can’t let out of the bag quite yet.
But what I can share is this (and I’m over the moon about it!), specifically for folks local to, or within driving distance of, Saratoga Springs, NY:
Be still my heart…The Full Catastrophe shelved beside The Glass Castle!
I can’t say enough good things about
, host of A Place of Yes podcast and founder, along with her husband Brian, of Jake’s Help from Heaven, a nonprofit whose main goal is “to create opportunities for individuals with complex medical needs and disabilities to thrive.”Heather and Brian lost their 8-year-old son Jake to a seizure disorder in 2010. Jake’s Help from Heaven is their way of keeping Jake’s memory alive, to keep saying his name (something that is SO important to me and those of us who have lost those we love), while providing financial support to families caring for medically fragile children.
I couldn’t be more excited to not only be a guest on the podcast but to be part of their first live recording. What makes it even more special is that the recording will take place at Northshire Bookstore, one of my favorite bookshops ever. This is your invitation to come to Broadway in Saratoga Springs on what we hope will be a beautiful summer evening. Enjoy an hourlong book talk/Q & A/signing, then take in all Saratoga has to offer.
I hope to see many of you there!
HEART HEALTH NEWS
A brief update this month, because as always this post has gotten way longer than I’d intended.
On May 29 and 30, my husband Kevin, another Family Heart Foundation ambassador Barbara Collura, and I hosted a table at the Delightful Run for Women Health and Fitness Expo at the Sage Armory in Albany, NY. As always, we were delighted to speak with community members about FH and elevated Lp(a) (see the Foundation website linked above for more information). Especially rewarding was hearing from folks we’d spoken with in previous years who, influenced by our advocacy, were now receiving appropriate treatment for genetic lipid disorders.
That’s all for now. Thank you so much, each of you, for reading this far, for sharing, and for joining this growing community of folks who believe in the importance of holding each other up through all life throws our way. As the sticker on my car’s rear window proclaims, “You Matter.”
A brief request: If you’ve read The Full Catastrophe (or plan to), please 🙏🏼 leave a brief review on Amazon. These reviews are so important in getting small press books seen by more readers. Even if you haven’t purchased the book at Amazon, you can still review it there. Simply select the star rating and write a few lines.
If you’ve already reviewed it on Goodreads, click “write a review” and your review should appear. Copy and paste that into Amazon and, voila!
And if you know of grief groups or workshops on topics relating to navigating loss and trauma and uncertainty that might be interested in The Full Catastrophe—or college courses that might benefit from assigning it as a lived experience book—I’m all ears. I’m eager to reach people through talks at bookshops or libraries as well.If your LDL-C cholesterol is over 190, doesn’t change with lifestyle modifications, and you have a family history of early heart events, you could have FH. And ask your physician to test your Lp(a) (say it: “L-P-little a”), since it’s elevated in 1 in 5 individuals yet is hardly ever checked. Feel free to get in touch with questions or for more information.
In a Flash opens for submissions on the theme of HOPE from July 1 - 15; future themes are below. If you’re a flash CNF writer, we’d love to see your work.
Remember: regardless of how much time has passed since losing your loved one, you may still catch sight of them when you least expect it. And while you’re at it, be kind to yourself. All grief is valid. Yours, too.
Till next time,
Casey, this story from Madrid is amazing! I bet Eric had it "planned" all along. I'm so glad you got to spend the afternoon with him.
Thank you my generous friend!