Before Megan, before Shelby, before dating and marriage and sickness and death, there was my car. I bought my Mustang in 2000, when I was only 20 years old, during my service in the US Marine Corps. It was my first passion. I drove that car to the beach every weekend with my buddies. I drove it 14 hours one-way from North Carolina, once…
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He Lives
This weekend, I travelled to a retreat centre in the beautiful countryside near Bakewell, in the southern part of the Peak District. Driving along those winding roads, I felt Stan’s presence with me, as I gazed upon the vibrant orange and red and yellow trees lining the hills, their leaves laying a royal carpet over green grasses. Stan loved…
To Choose Pain
It’s been a long week. Most of my stuff has sat in storage since Drew died three years ago. And before that, probably half those boxes hadn’t been opened in years. With the move to Ohio in just a few weeks, it’s time to finally tackle this. I decided that I didn’t want to take any extra baggage (literally) with me on this new venture, and that…
The Waves of Grief
Last night I went to the movies with some friends to see the new Ridley Scott film, The Martian. It was awesome, really clever, enough suspense to make it exciting and interesting without freaking me out too much, with plenty of feel-good moments. Going to see a movie was something Dan and I did very often, sometimes two or three times a…
The Road to Forgiveness
The face of grief is always changing. Grief never ends – it just shifts and changes, over and over and over again. The past few months, my grief tsunami has turned into something very different than ever before. I almost want to call it “profound”, but that sounds too pompous. I do feel as if this past year or so, I have been able to dig deeper…
Just Be There
The more I learn and understand about the grieving process, the more I also clearly see how deeply our culture is uninformed about it and how horribly damaging it can be to some of us already damaged by the loss itself. So be forewarned: this post is a bit of a rant. I can’t remember ever in my life being taught anything about death other than…
Our Dance~
His eyes would catch mine across a crowded room and he would wink at me. It connected us through the energy of all those other people. I loved when he winked at me. We danced everywhere. In the kitchen, in the hallways, in our gardens outside, and on the side of the road in Death Valley. Not in the way that people who really know how to dance…
Natural Selection
If you have followed Sarah and I’s writing over these months, you know that we’ve now met each other’s families. She traveled to Ohio a few weeks ago, for the first time, and upon arriving, we made sure to arrange time to specifically visit both my parents and Megan’s parents. Terri, Megan’s mother, has sadly had to watch two of…
Searching for Stan
It is a chilly October morning and I am listening to the wind and watching the early light steal across the sky. I want to write words that are meaningful and resonate with others who are grieving, too. I want to speak to the parts of me that others may keep hidden, even from themselves. I want to share the broken bits and the light of hope that…
Many Families, One Tree
Like his parents, Drew’s aunt is someone I’ve gotten much closer to since he died. Yesterday was our first time visiting since I went up to Ohio last month. I went to help her move some furniture out of her uncle’s garage. The 2 hour drive out to his place was just what we needed to catch up on all that is changing in our lives with my move to…
To Wait or to Do it Alone…
I’ve written in the past about how one of the factors of my husband’s death that causes me a lot of sadness is that we didn’t get the opportunity to have a family. Please forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but this is what’s on my mind this week. At the time of his death we were talking a lot about trying to conceive within the next year or…
Over It
After a long day at work yesterday, teaching Theatre and Comedy courses at the University I work at and have worked at for 15 years, I came home to find out about the awful, horrific shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua College. I had sat down and put my TV on in order to feel relaxed after a tiring day, and instead, I found myself feeling once again…