Just read your interview with Human/Mother-- I was incredibly moved by your comments about mindfulness and how you avoided creating the house of screaming your parents raised you in.
However, I came here to comment: You are incredibly beautiful! Not the most important thing about you by any means of course, but I wanted to say it just in case you need to hear it. I had assumed you had Kiki much younger than you did, seeing the picture of you in that interview, with your awesome Kiki heart tattoo on your arm, and then learning you're 63!? You look amazing.
Also wanted to say that I'm 29 and haven't had kids yet and have an endless well of anxiety that I will never have children, so knowing you had Kiki at age 35 assuages my fears.
Dear Katelin, thank you for your thoughtful message. It's wonderful to receive such a lovely compliment! It did really make my day (well, more than a day!) and I will remember it when I need a boost. In fact I might have to come back here and re-read your comment regularly, haha! I think that interview was the first time I mentioned my age here.
For a long time I didn't think I wanted to have kids. At 29 I wasn't even thinking about it. But I also grew up with a mom who regretted having kids, so I was very conflicted. Anyway, waiting was the right thing for me. But I can imagine the well of anxiety that you refer to. I wish I had some words of wisdom about the anxiety. I do remember that 29 was a particularly hard year for me. The thirties were much better.
I am glad you liked the interview and I really appreciate you taking the time to get in touch. Thank you! 💛💛💛
I lost my mom three months ago, its been the most pain Ive ever felt in my life. As I manage grief, I go back to our relationship and how beautiful it was, and how full it made me feel. As I read your piece, I saw my own relationship with my mother and my heart felt warm. I resonate so much o how grief takes us out, but does not exactly kill us, and that is one of the biggest pains.
Dear Kenyi, I am so sorry about the loss of your mom. I understand the shock of the pain, it is so much deeper and more painful than anything life prepares us for.
It makes me happy to know that you had a beautiful and close relationship with your mother. Those good memories are a treasure forever.
At three months, your grief is still so new. Sometimes people can feel like there is a timeline to get over our grief. It takes a long time to get used to carrying sadness, but it does happen.
I still talk to Kiki all the time, and I believe we're still connected in a very real way.
Thank you for reading, and for telling me how you are feeling. 💛 Sending love and understanding to you.
Dear Tina and Eric, You were such adorable young people. I love your description of you when you met. Thanks for writing; I was mesmerized and couldn't stop reading, even tho it was very late and I was very tired. Thank you, thank you, thank you with lovel
Thank you Theresa! It is great to hear from you. I'm so glad you liked this post about our early days. I really appreciate you reading and commenting, and thanks for staying up late to read!
Tina. I just found you today! I was an internet customer of Blue Highways. I had no idea what happened. I knew you were fighting cancer, and today (1/26/25), I googled you to try to find out about you. First off, my heart is just broken into 2 pieces for you losing your beautiful daughter Kiki. I know she is still with you forever in your heart and soul. Second, I am happy that you and your husband are finding the strength to go on without her. You honor her deeply by doing so. I am so glad you survived the cancer. I think of you so often because so many beautiful Blue Highways blankets adorn my home still. My husband Luke and live in Wickenburg, AZ. If y'all ever find yourselves in this cute Western town (Team Roping Capital if the World), please know you have a "friend" here. I have now subscribed to your Substack and will enjoy reading your stories. My cell is 310-850-1105. I truly wish you all the best as you navigate. I really do miss your store! God bless you and keep you. Amy Jo Milick
Dear Amy Jo, it is wonderful to hear from you. You were one of my best customers! It warms my heart to know that you cared enough to google me, and I'm glad you found me here. Thank you so much for subscribing. You may have seen it already, but I recently posted an essay about ending Blue Highways:
I'm happy to hear you're still enjoying the blankets! We are currently in SW New Mexico for two months, and after that we may be heading through AZ. It would be so nice to meet up in person, I will let you know if we're heading anywhere near Wickenburg.
Thanks so much for getting in touch, it really made me so happy to get your message. 💛
Tina. My cell is 310-850-1105. Would love to meet you in person. I DID read that story! It was the first one I read. 🤩 Safe travels!! Call if you come this way! It is a charming little town. You are an inspiration!!
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your hope. I look forward to reading more. Having almost lost my daughter (and granddaughter) I am trying to help my granddaughter start a non profit to train emotional health support puppies and save our cottage from developers to use as as a training facility for kids and puppies to recover from trauma and grief.
Hi Tina: It was so lovely to meet you today on the Cohort call. I had read your essay in the New Yorker several months ago because of something you posted on Notes, I think, but didn't connect the essay to you when I met you today until I read this piece. I'm so glad this prompted me to subscribe to Turkey Town. Your story is remarkable. Your response and the life you have created since losing Kiki even more so. Thank you for sharing your story here. I look forward to reading more.
Hi Cathy, it was great to meet you too! Thanks so much for subscribing. So pleased to know you enjoyed the NYT essay and glad we are now connected through the Cohort. Thanks for reading!
We were older when we had our only child in 1999. We were a week from our 40th birthday. My wife and I share the same birthday. Nik was the pride of our lives. We were determined to raise a wonderful human being with the most important element was being happy. He out did anything we could have dreamed of, without our help. We provided guidance but he was his own person. And what a person he was. Intelligent, kind, empathetic, curious. We were so excited so share our existence with him. Then on September 21, 2023, a careless driver ended all of this. We have struggled ever since. Our big family event every year was a haunted house that we put on for our community. We never charged and will never do so. But we did begin asking for donations to support a scholarship in Nik's name at the University of Texas San Antonio. It has grown to a point we are now awarding 4 scholarships per year. That is what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other.
Dear Rick, thank you for telling me about Nik. The loss of a child is a grief that never ends, and the loss of an only child carries secondary losses that are probably unimaginable to most people. It sounds like you raised Nik in a similar way to how we raised Kiki – "…a wonderful human being, and the most important element was being happy…"
I also relate to what you said about being excited to share your existence with him. We were excited just to be in the same world with Kiki, excited to see what she would do with her life.
Wonderful that there is a scholarship in Nik's name. You have my heartfelt empathy as one parent to another, as we both love and miss our beautiful children. Thank you for reading and commenting. 💛
You have validated my habit of holding on to old newspapers. I just read your Modern Love essay about Kiki, six months later. It moved me to tears. This week is the anniversary of my mom's death and you captured so cogently what that mother-daughetr bond can be, if we are are lucky. I am so sad for your loss of Kiki and am grateful that you have shared a glimpse of her with all of us. Thank you and wishing you comfort from your memories of your gorgeous girl.
Dear Edna, I can relate – when I used to get the Sunday Times home delivery I would often be reading articles months after they came out!
Thank you for sharing your reaction to the story. I'm sorry for the loss of your mom and I appreciate your empathy. Connecting with others who understand grief does not necessarily take away the sadness but somehow the shared empathy lessens the suffering. 💛 Thanks!
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry about your daughter Kiki. I too have found the newfound peace of not being too attached to things and look forward to reading more of your writing.
I am working towards starting my own Substack to work through my own child-loss-related grief journey. My husband and I have been pregnant with 7 different children, but only one of them is earth side. Our living child is on this earth with us while his identical twin is elsewhere, fiercely protecting him (or, at least this is what I like to believe). I was drawn to your story not just because of the relations of grief, but also because my husband and I used to nomadically travel the country in a built-out van for a couple years. We always itch to get back on the road, but it's taken us a long 3 years to find our footing after the loss of our son. So I also deeply resonate on the nomadic side of things. I'm so terribly sorry for that loss. No words undo that pain. I was struck when I read your words "...when the worst thing happens, the cruelest part is, it doesn't kill you." I felt that in my bones. Thank you for putting those words down and out there into the world. I look forward to reading more of your words. Also, if you haven't already, the book "It's OK You're Not OK" is like balm on the heart when grief throws us through the battles of confusion, exhaustion, overwhelm, and more. - Jayme
Hi Jayme, thanks so much for sharing some of your journey with me. I am so sorry about your losses. We can empathize with each other's pain. I hope that writing here on Substack is a positive creative outlet for you. It has been for me, and has brought wonderful personal connections with people who can understand and relate.
I read "It's OK…" a few months after my daughter's death, and found it to be absolutely the best grief book out there, and the only one that really brought me any comfort or relief. It's a wonderful book.
Thank you for reading, and best of luck with your new Substack!
So pleased to have just found you but gutted about the broken heart that creates your new narrative. My heart breaks for you. Putting your stories out there helps so many. Thank you.
Morning Tina. Each morning I wake early, write, bring a coffee back to bed and read my Substack email notifications. I don't even recall subscribing to your newsletter, but I'm so glad I did. Your introduction has stopped me in my tracks. Stopped me feeling sorry for myself and kicked me up the backside. You are an inspiration...a traveller too. I'm so sorry to hear about your beautiful daughter, there are no words to make that pain ease, you live through and with it. As I say, an inspiration. I live in Italy, in the middle of nature, my happy place but being on the road has always been one of my dreams.......maybe one day.
Hi Wendy, thank you for commenting! I've noticed that Substack has a thing where if you click on a note, and inadvertently click next to the author's name, it instantly subscribes you. I've done it a lot, I'm not crazy about that feature. But I'm happy you ended up here, and thank you for reading and commenting. Isn't it amazing how we can connect in this way. Your life in Italy sounds wonderful. I was there many years ago and would love to go back.
you're most welcome. I'm sure it will resonate with you. Such a difficult thing to understand and to know how to cope, how to help, what to say or what not to say and when. You're decision to share your grief and to write and keep writing will absolutely help others, if this is any small comfort.
Just read your interview with Human/Mother-- I was incredibly moved by your comments about mindfulness and how you avoided creating the house of screaming your parents raised you in.
However, I came here to comment: You are incredibly beautiful! Not the most important thing about you by any means of course, but I wanted to say it just in case you need to hear it. I had assumed you had Kiki much younger than you did, seeing the picture of you in that interview, with your awesome Kiki heart tattoo on your arm, and then learning you're 63!? You look amazing.
Also wanted to say that I'm 29 and haven't had kids yet and have an endless well of anxiety that I will never have children, so knowing you had Kiki at age 35 assuages my fears.
Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful day!
Dear Katelin, thank you for your thoughtful message. It's wonderful to receive such a lovely compliment! It did really make my day (well, more than a day!) and I will remember it when I need a boost. In fact I might have to come back here and re-read your comment regularly, haha! I think that interview was the first time I mentioned my age here.
For a long time I didn't think I wanted to have kids. At 29 I wasn't even thinking about it. But I also grew up with a mom who regretted having kids, so I was very conflicted. Anyway, waiting was the right thing for me. But I can imagine the well of anxiety that you refer to. I wish I had some words of wisdom about the anxiety. I do remember that 29 was a particularly hard year for me. The thirties were much better.
I am glad you liked the interview and I really appreciate you taking the time to get in touch. Thank you! 💛💛💛
Your Modern Love story was published on my birthday and what a gift it was to read it, thank you 🙏
I'm so very sorry about Kiki. Your words are beautiful and help me ponder my own losses.
Kristin, I'm so glad you liked the Modern Love story. Thank you for being here. 💛
Tina, is this a new photo with your tattoo? It's lovely! Thinking of you. 🩷 🌻
Hi Rosemary, yes, it is, I love it! Thank you. Good to hear from you 💛
Wow, you've really been through it. Testament to you both for sticking together through such tragedy. I can't even imagine.
Thank you Suzan!
I lost my mom three months ago, its been the most pain Ive ever felt in my life. As I manage grief, I go back to our relationship and how beautiful it was, and how full it made me feel. As I read your piece, I saw my own relationship with my mother and my heart felt warm. I resonate so much o how grief takes us out, but does not exactly kill us, and that is one of the biggest pains.
Dear Kenyi, I am so sorry about the loss of your mom. I understand the shock of the pain, it is so much deeper and more painful than anything life prepares us for.
It makes me happy to know that you had a beautiful and close relationship with your mother. Those good memories are a treasure forever.
At three months, your grief is still so new. Sometimes people can feel like there is a timeline to get over our grief. It takes a long time to get used to carrying sadness, but it does happen.
I still talk to Kiki all the time, and I believe we're still connected in a very real way.
Thank you for reading, and for telling me how you are feeling. 💛 Sending love and understanding to you.
Dear Tina and Eric, You were such adorable young people. I love your description of you when you met. Thanks for writing; I was mesmerized and couldn't stop reading, even tho it was very late and I was very tired. Thank you, thank you, thank you with lovel
Thank you Theresa! It is great to hear from you. I'm so glad you liked this post about our early days. I really appreciate you reading and commenting, and thanks for staying up late to read!
Tina. I just found you today! I was an internet customer of Blue Highways. I had no idea what happened. I knew you were fighting cancer, and today (1/26/25), I googled you to try to find out about you. First off, my heart is just broken into 2 pieces for you losing your beautiful daughter Kiki. I know she is still with you forever in your heart and soul. Second, I am happy that you and your husband are finding the strength to go on without her. You honor her deeply by doing so. I am so glad you survived the cancer. I think of you so often because so many beautiful Blue Highways blankets adorn my home still. My husband Luke and live in Wickenburg, AZ. If y'all ever find yourselves in this cute Western town (Team Roping Capital if the World), please know you have a "friend" here. I have now subscribed to your Substack and will enjoy reading your stories. My cell is 310-850-1105. I truly wish you all the best as you navigate. I really do miss your store! God bless you and keep you. Amy Jo Milick
Dear Amy Jo, it is wonderful to hear from you. You were one of my best customers! It warms my heart to know that you cared enough to google me, and I'm glad you found me here. Thank you so much for subscribing. You may have seen it already, but I recently posted an essay about ending Blue Highways:
https://tinahedin.substack.com/p/a-stranger-told-me-what-i-needed
I'm happy to hear you're still enjoying the blankets! We are currently in SW New Mexico for two months, and after that we may be heading through AZ. It would be so nice to meet up in person, I will let you know if we're heading anywhere near Wickenburg.
Thanks so much for getting in touch, it really made me so happy to get your message. 💛
Tina. My cell is 310-850-1105. Would love to meet you in person. I DID read that story! It was the first one I read. 🤩 Safe travels!! Call if you come this way! It is a charming little town. You are an inspiration!!
Thank you Amy!
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your hope. I look forward to reading more. Having almost lost my daughter (and granddaughter) I am trying to help my granddaughter start a non profit to train emotional health support puppies and save our cottage from developers to use as as a training facility for kids and puppies to recover from trauma and grief.
https://thisiswhidbey.com/2024/08/24/young-teen-pursues-girl-scout-gold/
Hi Elizabeth, thanks so much for reading, and best of luck to your granddaughter on her very worthwhile project!
Hi Tina: It was so lovely to meet you today on the Cohort call. I had read your essay in the New Yorker several months ago because of something you posted on Notes, I think, but didn't connect the essay to you when I met you today until I read this piece. I'm so glad this prompted me to subscribe to Turkey Town. Your story is remarkable. Your response and the life you have created since losing Kiki even more so. Thank you for sharing your story here. I look forward to reading more.
Hi Cathy, it was great to meet you too! Thanks so much for subscribing. So pleased to know you enjoyed the NYT essay and glad we are now connected through the Cohort. Thanks for reading!
We were older when we had our only child in 1999. We were a week from our 40th birthday. My wife and I share the same birthday. Nik was the pride of our lives. We were determined to raise a wonderful human being with the most important element was being happy. He out did anything we could have dreamed of, without our help. We provided guidance but he was his own person. And what a person he was. Intelligent, kind, empathetic, curious. We were so excited so share our existence with him. Then on September 21, 2023, a careless driver ended all of this. We have struggled ever since. Our big family event every year was a haunted house that we put on for our community. We never charged and will never do so. But we did begin asking for donations to support a scholarship in Nik's name at the University of Texas San Antonio. It has grown to a point we are now awarding 4 scholarships per year. That is what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other.
Dear Rick, thank you for telling me about Nik. The loss of a child is a grief that never ends, and the loss of an only child carries secondary losses that are probably unimaginable to most people. It sounds like you raised Nik in a similar way to how we raised Kiki – "…a wonderful human being, and the most important element was being happy…"
I also relate to what you said about being excited to share your existence with him. We were excited just to be in the same world with Kiki, excited to see what she would do with her life.
Wonderful that there is a scholarship in Nik's name. You have my heartfelt empathy as one parent to another, as we both love and miss our beautiful children. Thank you for reading and commenting. 💛
You have validated my habit of holding on to old newspapers. I just read your Modern Love essay about Kiki, six months later. It moved me to tears. This week is the anniversary of my mom's death and you captured so cogently what that mother-daughetr bond can be, if we are are lucky. I am so sad for your loss of Kiki and am grateful that you have shared a glimpse of her with all of us. Thank you and wishing you comfort from your memories of your gorgeous girl.
Dear Edna, I can relate – when I used to get the Sunday Times home delivery I would often be reading articles months after they came out!
Thank you for sharing your reaction to the story. I'm sorry for the loss of your mom and I appreciate your empathy. Connecting with others who understand grief does not necessarily take away the sadness but somehow the shared empathy lessens the suffering. 💛 Thanks!
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry about your daughter Kiki. I too have found the newfound peace of not being too attached to things and look forward to reading more of your writing.
Thanks so much Lorraine!
I am working towards starting my own Substack to work through my own child-loss-related grief journey. My husband and I have been pregnant with 7 different children, but only one of them is earth side. Our living child is on this earth with us while his identical twin is elsewhere, fiercely protecting him (or, at least this is what I like to believe). I was drawn to your story not just because of the relations of grief, but also because my husband and I used to nomadically travel the country in a built-out van for a couple years. We always itch to get back on the road, but it's taken us a long 3 years to find our footing after the loss of our son. So I also deeply resonate on the nomadic side of things. I'm so terribly sorry for that loss. No words undo that pain. I was struck when I read your words "...when the worst thing happens, the cruelest part is, it doesn't kill you." I felt that in my bones. Thank you for putting those words down and out there into the world. I look forward to reading more of your words. Also, if you haven't already, the book "It's OK You're Not OK" is like balm on the heart when grief throws us through the battles of confusion, exhaustion, overwhelm, and more. - Jayme
Hi Jayme, thanks so much for sharing some of your journey with me. I am so sorry about your losses. We can empathize with each other's pain. I hope that writing here on Substack is a positive creative outlet for you. It has been for me, and has brought wonderful personal connections with people who can understand and relate.
I read "It's OK…" a few months after my daughter's death, and found it to be absolutely the best grief book out there, and the only one that really brought me any comfort or relief. It's a wonderful book.
Thank you for reading, and best of luck with your new Substack!
So pleased to have just found you but gutted about the broken heart that creates your new narrative. My heart breaks for you. Putting your stories out there helps so many. Thank you.
thank you so much for reading, Becky.
Morning Tina. Each morning I wake early, write, bring a coffee back to bed and read my Substack email notifications. I don't even recall subscribing to your newsletter, but I'm so glad I did. Your introduction has stopped me in my tracks. Stopped me feeling sorry for myself and kicked me up the backside. You are an inspiration...a traveller too. I'm so sorry to hear about your beautiful daughter, there are no words to make that pain ease, you live through and with it. As I say, an inspiration. I live in Italy, in the middle of nature, my happy place but being on the road has always been one of my dreams.......maybe one day.
Hi Wendy, thank you for commenting! I've noticed that Substack has a thing where if you click on a note, and inadvertently click next to the author's name, it instantly subscribes you. I've done it a lot, I'm not crazy about that feature. But I'm happy you ended up here, and thank you for reading and commenting. Isn't it amazing how we can connect in this way. Your life in Italy sounds wonderful. I was there many years ago and would love to go back.
Hi Tina
you're most welcome. I'm sure it will resonate with you. Such a difficult thing to understand and to know how to cope, how to help, what to say or what not to say and when. You're decision to share your grief and to write and keep writing will absolutely help others, if this is any small comfort.
kind regards
Nick
Thank you Nick, I appreciate you being here.