K.C. Clifford
Grief is an Equalizer

#TruthBooking: Grief is an equalizer on the human playing field. No one is immune to it. Grief has no respect for our timelines, our plans, or our need to appear put together. Most of us operate on the surface of life’s ocean with little regard for grief’s impact until suddenly one day we find it’s our turn to be churned around in the undertow. Grief leaves us wondering if we will ever get to come up for air.

I was on stage with a friend recently. She looked out at the large crowd and remarked that if every person in the audience were to reach out to our left and right, in front of us or behind, chances are we would all connect with another human who has experienced deep loss. It’s an image that hasn’t left me, especially since we’re in the throes of the holiday season. During a time that is hyped as merry and bright, the grieving walk among us. In my own life, I can think of those grieving the loss of a spouse, a father, a child, a grandmother, a dear friend, a partner, a mentor, and a pregnancy. Traditions can never be the same, and the search for the so-called “new normal” leaves us navigating the season which brings not tidings of joy, but waves of sadness. There is an empty chair at the table, a stocking missing from the mantle. The holidays can serve as a magnifying glass making loneliness and loss loom large.

Every single one of us experiences grief in our lives. For some of us in 2019, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s will be a painful exercise in merely surviving the next thing.

Grief is an Equalizer

Please Stay

In the past few days, the world lost two beautiful people I knew due to suicide. Neither of them were very close friends, but my memories of each were from a vibrant, seemingly joyful part of their lives. Heartbreakingly, they both left precious children behind. With the news of each death, I sat staring at my screen wondering what I could have done, if I could have reached out and made a difference. I cried for the babies and their innocence lost. I cried for the loss...

World-Changer

Truthbooking: Someday I'll be so pleased to see how her strong, spirited, passionate self serves her and those lucky enough to know her. The girl who commits to a path and doesn't look back is sure to move mountains and be a world-changer. But today, February 6th at 6:35 pm, I really just want her to stop screaming and flailing herself around on the floor because I had the audacity to offer her dinner. ‪#‎canigetawitness‬ ‪#‎truthbook‬

Waiting Room

We went to the OU game today with my Dad. Minutes before kickoff, Beatrice was playfully running and fell, hitting her head hard on the pavement. Seemingly instantaneous, a huge, angry bump protruded from her forehead. In the after, all around us there were EMTs, police, and kind bookstore workers, while I swirled about in a muffled tunnel of my screaming, hurting child. She never lost consciousness, and once we got her calm- which took at least 20 minutes- it seemed like she was going to be okay. The EMTs suggested an ambulance ride to the ER...

Sleepless

TruthBooking: My daughter hasn't really slept in 8 weeks. 56 days. That's over 15% of a year. She now struggles going to sleep on her own, awakens several times in the night and says she can't go back to sleep, and eventually wakes up for good very, very early in the morning, like at a time most of us would say is not okay to be awake. Even God is not up then. Most parents I know would recognize one of the above sleep struggles alone as a whole lot to handle. Three of them at once? No, no. Just no. But apparently....

This Too Shall Pass

It's been one of my harder mama days in recent memory. Hollis is teething and won't let me put him down. Bea, refusing to sleep these days, rapidly fluctuates between sheer delightfulness and just plain rude. David is sick with fever and quarantined upstairs. And although this is entirely out of his control, I also find it rude. And incredibly thoughtless. I am bleary eyed from months of sleep-deprivation and without rope in most moments...

Healthy Therapy

I am a firm believer that a healthy, productive therapeutic relationship involves the therapist routinely holding up a mirror to reveal the part that I have played in my own life story, the good, the bad and the ugly, so that I might take ownership, learn, and effect change for good. In related news: Ouch.

Woody Fest 2015

As an artist, getting some good press is always a fun and welcome treat. But today Brandy Bam McDonnell went above and beyond and humbled me by putting such heart and thought into this piece about Hollis' entry into the world. It's the kind of story you only trust the telling rights to another mama. Thank you for listening Brandy, and for helping us share our little fighters story with a greater audience!

Today, David and I will pilgrimage out to Okemah, where at 5 pm I'll play my first postpartum show at WoodyFest. It will be nothing short of a miracle if I fit into more than yoga pants and there's not spit-up on them to boot. But despite my fashion crisis, I'm going to show up in all my imperfect, not so shiny and not at all put together new mama-ness with my little miracle family in tow. And I plan to bring my whole heart with me to the stage where I'll sing songs and tell stories about love, sorrow, family, vulnerability, hope. Funny, all of those things are so fresh to me after the storm we faced. I hope to see you there.

Read the full article here: http://newsok.com/article/5432874

Road Trip

Tonight we are nestled in at home after a nearly two week road trip. We gathered our eight week old and two and a half year old and drove 2565 miles east to introduce David's 91 year old grandma to her great grandchildren.

I thought we had possibly lost our minds for taking the trip. I still kind of do. But despite the bone aching exhaustion I feel such gratitude for the memories we made along the way. We've never really traveled for pleasure, only for touring and work. This year, before our world erupted with pregnancy complications and trauma, we vowed...