Last month was the 5 year mark since my husband’s sudden death. About 11 months after he died, I started going to see my grief counselor/therapist. I found her through a series of other therapists that were either not a match for me, didn’t get it at all, or were way too expensive. (and for me, way too expensive = any money at all, since Im broke.)…
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Survival Preparedness
The past few weeks I feel as if my life is flowing forward full throttle. This week was the 3 1/2 year mark of Mike’s death, on the 17th, and I can honestly say it has taken this long for me to be able to handle this kind of momentum and change. But I can also say that somehow, in some way, I feel more than ready for it, suddenly. Surviving…
Death and Friendships (not)
The fact that a decades old friendship is dead in the water and it doesn’t bother me says to me that it’s been floating belly up for some time, and I just never really noticed. Friendships die for various reasons; it can be something small that suddenly becomes a catalyst, or it can be something big and you just can’t ignore it. I guess what…
Scheduled Grief
I sat down last night to begin my writing for this week, and I had nothing. No anecdotes, no significant events, not even any special lessons I learned this past week as it pertains to grief or mourning. I stared at the screen for hours, adding a few paragraphs, reading over them, then deleting them. Finally, as midnight drew near, I closed my…
Facing your fears
Two weeks ago my oldest son was involved in a bicycle accident. He was being a typical 14 year old boy and decided to ride is bike down an extremely steep hill and lost control at the end. The handlebar stabbed him in the stomach, he was then thrown off the bike. He was conscious but immediately began to throw up. Thank God his friend was with him…
Parenting and Grieving, How the Hell?
My sister came to visit last weekend, and we went out for a girls night to see that movie Bad Moms. It’s the first time in my life I could relate to such a movie… and to parts of my sister’s life, having raised three children herself. The movie was hilarious, we laughed so hard, and it felt so good to finally just have some girl time…
Home Is Where The Heart Is
I sat in the car alone, across the street from the vacant house we once called home. The house was the only one in the street without lights on. I hoped none of the neighbours would notice me parked and no one did. I sat in silence reminiscing on sweet memories of us taking evening walks under the stars. I imagined we were teenagers again, lying on…
The Choice That Isn’t A Choice
There is a question that I hear asked within the widowed community, over and over again, time after time, on an endless loop. Widowed people, for whatever reason, seem to like asking one another this question, and seem to enjoy dissecting the meaning of the various answers to the question, when asking another fellow widowed person. The question…
That Door
It’s been an epic week. No other way to say it. Since my boyfriend is out of town for two weeks I took the opportunity to get ahead of the possibility that I may lose this house and do a massive purge. So for three days I sweated and lifted and sorted and threw away and arranged in my carport for a garage sale. That part was really, really…
This Silent Companion~
This life This life without him This life without his tangible Love His eyes no longer upon me from across the room His smile no longer beckoning me into his armsThis life Of silence at the end of the day Quiet all around me Just my thoughts rolling and roiling around in my brain And in my heart, though I’ve only realized since his death that it…
Our Day
What would have been Megan’s 35th birthday was a few weeks ago, on July 24th. I would venture to say that, for most widows and widowers, birthdays are one of the hardest days to remember. They are associated with memories of fun times, friends and family celebrating that person’s day, and yet another year “in the books”. To have that…
Why am I still here?
When someone you truly love dies you cannot help but feel empty and useless. You wonder why and how you will live this life without them. For me I know I have to; I have four kids depending on me. I can’t let them down, I can’t leave them. But for a long time my mentality was I needed to live long enough to raise them, get them off on their own…