Photo our own – with our eldest child, Ben. I have many terrible dreams. Night-time dreams, I mean. My day-time dreams are much more enjoyable, pleasant, inspiring, life-giving. I am a light sleeper, which, I think, also means I dream a lot. Or I wake up a lot from my dreams, as I am having […]
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Beginnings Revisited
I did not die.
And, neither did you.
I am still breathing.
And, so are you.
It’s that plain.
I can make his death as complicated as I want to, but really it is simple.
Mike died. I didn’t.
Topsy Turvy Widowed World
Happy Sunday, peeps! Sometimes, this life after loss thing feels so surreal to me I can barely take it. At times, it feels as if the life I am living is a life I dont even recognize as me, and I wonder would my dead husband Don recognize it, if he were randomly no longer […]
The Memory Bank
It all adds up doesn’t it? I’ve had days where it’s one bad thing again and again. I couldn’t catch a break. Life seems so tough when I’m right in the middle of the storm. I used to dwell on the harder days way more then dwelling on the good ones. You know what I […]
Winter Doldrums
Mid-January. I can count on consistent cold for at least another couple of months. My rational mind knows better, but I sometimes wonder whether the sun permanently has vanished behind thick and impenetrable gray clouds, low, menacing, and, […]
Be Brave
Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it. Bear Grylls Experiencing loss in the time of Covid is complicated. Times like these require some amount of bravery, either conscious or unconscious, to keep going. As does widowhood. Contemplating bravery is a helpful tool in […]
2022 is the year of….Lovely Work
Image by Jen Theodore on Unsplash We are far enough into January now to no longer be seeing quite so many stories of New Year’s Resolutions. What a relief. I can better tolerate stories of New Year’s Intentions – which seem to be more flexible, more humane. Intentions seem to offer more malleability, more wiggle […]
A Grief of My Own – 2022 Addendum
I wrote the original blog in August of 2020 and a lot has changed in my life since then, but this blog is still so very relevant. I have added my current thoughts into the original piece to highlight how grief is not static. The process of grief is long. Much longer than I thought […]
Loving him was red.
So, this is going to sound weird. But, sometimes I feel jealous of widows who have seemingly perfect love stories with their late partners. Especially, widows who were married, had a beautiful house together, and so many big life moments together. I have no engagement photos or stories, no wedding videos, no “bought our first […]
Old Shoes
I met Donna and Craig in the 1970s. We have been very close friends for nearly a half century. Fresh from law school, my first job as a clerk for a state appellate court judge required me to relocate to the medium sized city where the judge resided. I was married at this time, but […]
Resting in the Nest of my Grief
Not much to report from Widow Neff this week. Last week’s post published on Wednesday followed by a positive PCR test arriving to me the day after. By then, I mostly felt better, but the official “symptoms” continue into today, yet another Wednesday, and just five days after the confirmed Covid test. PATIENCE is required […]
“Go Get Yourself A Bigger Problem”
Photos by my friend Jane del Pozo Back in the early 1990s, I worked for a couple of years post-Masters, in a small consulting firm of organisational psychologists in Cambridge. One of my colleagues – let’s call her Terri – was a bullish, no-nonsense Aussie, who has stayed in my mind all these decades, despite […]