This will be my last blog. My life has become so full that I no longer have the necessary time to dedicate to writing. This is so very different than in the recent past when I had too much time on my hands. I distinctly remember the feel of those days when I had nowhere […]
Blog
Are Signs Real? Who Cares!
In the past decade of years that I’ve “put in” as a widowed person, one thing I have noticed time and again is the endless debate about seeing “signs” from our loved ones who have died. There are so many theories about this, and so many opinions, and those in the widowed community that I […]
Grief’s Gaslighting Guilt
“Why was I the one to live and not him?” “Did I do enough when he was sick?” “But if only I had done more then maybe, just maybe, he’d still be alive.” These are all statement I have said to myself about Clayton’s death. These are all statements that I have heard other widowed […]
The Kitchen Sink
As you may recall, when we left off I was completing the last-minute preparations for my departure to sunnier, warmer climes for a hard-earned, albeit too brief, holiday. Although I was intending to regale you with stories from the West Coast and the beautiful island of Kauai, instead I restart with this account of my […]
The Mysterious Remnant of Fire . . .
. . . ASHES. . . and something more. What an odd circumstance when, after my father died and was cremated, that no one seemed to know where his ashes were located! A family member, wanting to keep them away from another family member, gave them to a friend of my dad’s who was said […]
The Shape of Her in Her
Photos my own this week from the shores of Lake Geneva One of my favourite writing prompts in Megan Devine’s 30-day Writing Your Grief programme comes on Day 28. So close to the end, when much excavation of one’s ever-changing emotions, thoughts, feelings and sensations has already gone on. The prompt starts with a brief […]
Winds of Change – Part of living
I originally wrote this blog five years ago on February12, 2018 to be exact. If you have followed my writing, reading this, you will recognize the evolution of grief. Over the years, the content of my writing has changed along with the tone of my grief. This blog highlights how grief can change with time.
As always, I hope my blog helps; and I think those who are just beginning down the path of grief will especially relate to the words I wrote so long ago.
The Vacuum
When I was first widowed back in July of 2011, and for a long time after, lots and lots of people suggested writing as a coping tool for the grief. People said to write down all my thoughts, my emotions, all of it. Some people suggested writing letters or notes to Don himself, to continue […]
The Grief Guard
Terrible things happen to people every single day but not everyone experiences terrible things. Some get to float through life without fear, loss or a bigger view of the world. Lucky maybe? However, true gratitude often comes from true grief. There’s a mindset now that any inconvenience is a huge struggle and so many are […]
Undone.
A partially written Master’s thesis. Half-completed songs. Medication bottles with pills still inside. An unmade bed. A guitar halfway strung. Bills unpaid. A bottle of water never finished. A face of stubble never shaved. Laundry that needed washing. Tickets to concerts never to be attended. A cat that needed to be fed. Work and volunteer […]
WHO AM I?
WHO AM I NOW? In talking with an old friend yesterday—recently widowed and in that oh-so-new-place of figuring out life without them—I found myself musing about who I am at mile marker 314 days. It’s hard not to compare life “then” with life “now”. The feeling, no longer new but never normal, of something missing; […]
Sometimes…
Sometimes when I come to reflect on what to write about each week, I just know. I know – yes – THIS is the incident, the thought, the feeling, the reflection, the conversation, the insight, the piece of wisdom that LANDED in my marrow. THIS is the poem, the quote, the text. THIS is the […]