What do I need in this moment? I take a breath I breathe in peace I breathe in silence I breathe in words, story, and music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCpXMy5GalI&list=RDlCpXMy5GalI&start_radio=1 Please excuse the holiday ad at the beginning. Worth waiting for Peace on Earth with Bing Crosby & David Bowie and assorted music […]
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Sign, Sign. Everywhere a Sign
Do you believe we can receive signs from our loved ones? I do. Some may say I’m doing a bit of reaching on this. Maybe. But if we can find something – anything – that helps us navigate through our loss, to help ease some of the pain, then why not grab it? After Vern […]
Funeral Attendance
Today I went to a funeral for friend whose mom passed away. I have known this friend since high school, and I think I even crashed on the couch in their basement once. I know some people avoid almost all future funerals after losing their partner. Admittedly, some of them are easier to sit through […]
Holiday Traditions Evolving
“Fun” fact – Lynn and I never spent a Christmas together in the 10 years we were together on Earth. Her family lived in Tennessee, and mine lived in the same town we lived. We both had big families we were close to, with lots of nieces and nephews. We both wanted to spend the […]
On the Scent of Home
Four years ago December 9th, I adopted an adorable Maltese-mix puppy out in San Diego. I’ve written before about Quint’s arrival in my life just seven weeks after Rich’s passing. Quint, named for Robert Shaw’s character in JAWS, began his life on the very same day Rich entered the ICU beginning what would become the […]
Volunteering
How many of the widowed folks out there keep in contact with their spouse’s relatives? Mario’s mom passed away in 2007 and his grandparents also passed after we’d made the move up to Oregon, but he kept in touch with his aunt (his mom’s sister) and cousin who also ended up in Oregon as well […]
Winter Arrives Early
After I had bragged here about months of unseasonably nice weather at home, Robyn and I just returned from a glorious week on a beach in the Dominican Republic to find eight inches of snow on the ground with temperatures hovering in the low twenties. Snow and the trailing bitter cold constituted a one-two punch. […]
Bringing Our Person Into the Holidays
Traditions, Rituals, and Memory Making Where do we begin? How does one start a new tradition or ritual for one’s self or for a family? How does making memories help? As holidays appear and then move on, how do we fill the empty place where our person is missing? GRIEF I had my own […]
Aloneness … Loneliness, Solitude or Isolation?
Aloneness – I had not heard this word until after I was widowed. It feels bigger than loneliness, more all encompassing. It felt right for me back in 2010 and feels right for me now. I do know I can be happy living alone … it took awhile but I eventually found it after Vern […]
Flashbacks
It’s weird how a flash of seemingly nothing can transport you back in time. One minute I’m running errands, crossing off my mental to do list, and the next I’m back in 2021. I don’t even know what prompted it. It could have been anything though; a song on the radio, a task he used […]
To Holiday Decorate or Not To Holiday Decorate?
I still don’t know if I am going to put up even a fraction of the massive amount of XMas decorations I have… Lynn came into our relationship with bins and bins of XMas decorations, a set and a half of a Dept 56 XMas Village, and all the Santa themed items under the sun. […]
Moving Parts
As we are just about through the first week of December, I realize that this is the third Christmas spent here in Old Florida. For those who may not know, I moved here two years after the passing of my husband, Rich. I was content in the home in Southeast Georgia that Rich and I […]