So its Fathers Day today. Always an emotional and complicated day. Over the years, this day has been one that I have carried with many mixed emotions. The sudden death of my husband Don, of course, comes to mind first. He was only 46 yrs old when he died, he always wanted to be a […]
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The Return of the King
Sometimes I want to look back a couple of years and reflect on where I was to help me see just how much I’ve grown. Day to day can sometimes feel like there’s no forward momentum but looking back over months and years shows me I’ve traveled many miles. I had my crown stripped and […]
Tattoos.
I remember sitting around my kitchen table in the days that followed Boris’s death and talking to my close circle about getting a tattoo in his memory. We chose a semicolon for suicide awareness. I think 12 or so of us got the tattoo for him. Before Boris died, I had never gotten a tattoo. […]
Arrow of Time
I was married to Lee on June 12th, which was this past Sunday. Can I still say that June 12th is my anniversary? Or that June 12th was my anniversary? Should I say that June 12th would have been our anniversary? Using proper grammar can be daunting, especially when referring to a loved one who […]
Year Two: Taking Stock
DEFINITION OF “TAKING STOCK” : to carefully think about something in order to make a decision about what to do next 1) We need to take stock of our life now and again. 2) She took stock of her life as she passed the 2-year mark of widowhood. KN Definition & Meaning with Merriam-Webster Today […]
Three Years of Pleasure and Pain
Main image by Zygimantas Dukauskas on Unsplash Yesterday, 11th June, is the day that Medjool has named “La Journée du ‘Oui’” (“’Yes’ day”). It is the day when, three years ago, in 2019, he chose me. I had already chosen him. Not chosen by default, simply because my sample size of prospective Medjools was One, […]
Midnight Storms
For the most part I’m not angry at Tony for dying by suicide and I just do it all without too much complaint. However, one-night last week had me on edge and anxious about our lives without him. At 1:30am, I am jolted awake by a train noise and the tornado sirens going off. There […]
Grief Expert
Lately, I have been asked to appear on several podcasts, or take part as a speaker or be interviewed for “Grief Summits” and “Grief Conferences” and other such events which have intimidating and very serious sounding titles. The reason I’ve been asked to do these events quite often recently, is because the TEDx talk that […]
The Weight of the Wait
There’s a heaviness of my grief that I haven’t talked much about and that grows closer to the end of watching someone die. You know it’s coming. You know it’s soon. For a long time you pray you get to keep them for as much time as possible but near the end my mind changed. […]
A Piece of Me
From time to time in these musings I have mentioned that I am a charter member of the Frazier Thomas Band. The Frazier Thomas Band was the imaginary air guitar band my oldest and nearest friends and I formed back in the late sixties to celebrate our halcyon days of youth. It seemed to grow […]
Standing at the Doorstep
Of Liminal Space In that liminal space, between what we know and what we can’t imagine, we are remade. –ludwig.guru Standing in front of a closed door reminds me of mystery. What is behind the door? Who might be on the other side of the door? What does the door open into….a large open room? […]
What You Should Know – revisited
Main image by Aron Visuals on Unsplash Italicised Section from Megan Devine: I was talking the other day about the realities of the second and third years of grief. We have this erroneous (and stupid) cultural idea that grief will be over, or at least appreciably better, by the end of the first year. Eighteen […]