As this posts I will be on my second full day in the UK with the musician. I know it is really a splurge of a thing to do…but I’m not regretting spending the money or the time. If I’ve learned anything in these past 2 1/2 years since Mike died it’s that life is short, grab ahold of what you can, while you can…and also, how absolutely…
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two-word lines
you died heart shattered Breathing cut eyes stung pulse raced sweat poured body shook memories pained i drove marriages happened babies birthed life continued hearts wept life awry you died…
We Have a Widow’s Voice Baby!
We are so excited to share that Kerryl, who shares the Tuesday writing duties with Mike, has given birth to a healthy baby boy! She will be back in two weeks to share details, but please join us in celebrating this wonderful addition to Kerryl and Ian’s family. We’ve reposted the blog where she shared her news….and will be excited to share a…
Words Like Cries
It is a Saturday, mid-morning, and I am driving the Snake Pass, a beautiful, winding road from Glossop to Sheffield, overlooking vistas of patchwork fields and hills painted with purple heather in early bloom. It is one of the few sunny summer days we have had, in Northern England, this year, and part of me wonders why I am going to spend it…
A Big Little First
This weekend has been amazing. Challenging, scary, exhausting, sweet, beautiful, silly, and bursting at the seams with love. Mike and Shelby have been here now for 3 days and this afternoon they head home back to Ohio. I can scarcely even put into words how amazing and terrifying all this has been. After countless hours of Skype calls – to meet her…
The Anger isn’t as Important as the Love
Last weekend I attended the wedding of one of my husband’s closest friends. This happened to fall on the second anniversary of his funeral, and a week after his anniversary. I always knew it was going to be a difficult time. I knew it would hurt and bring up all kinds of triggers, sad thoughts and memories. But somehow, despite knowing…
Happy for You, In Pain for Me
If there is one thing I have learned in the 4 years of being widowed, it is this: Pain and joy can and do exist in the same breath. Excruciating sadness and ecstatic happiness can be felt in the same exact moment. Inhale joy, exhale pain. That’s just how it works when you’ve lost your whole world in 2 seconds flat. Nothing is simple anymore.
Widows Walk
I am fortunate to have many beautiful family and friends in my life. Today, though, I feel moved to express just how important all my widowed friends are to me. I know I would not be able to walk through my own life now without them. The day Mike died, as we were making all those terrible phone calls, and just after that word “widow” had…
Fragments and Words~
Believe it or not, I am sometimes at a loss when it comes to writing my weekly blog. Not because I’ve run out of words but because it’s so hard to find other words to write that I haven’t already used. For me, the longer the time since Chuck’s death, the more intimate it becomes to me. And the more intimate it becomes, the fewer words I…
Decade
Thursday, August 6th, would have been Megan and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. A full decade. When I sit quietly to reflect on this, I suppose it would be a fitting end to the gauntlet I’ve been running the past few weeks. After a few months of relatively no significant milestones; her birthday, a trip to Myrtle Beach to spread her ashes,…
Rootless
This week, I have found myself questioning what I am doing here, in England, several thousand miles from the country of my birth. I came to the UK in 2009, on my own, to work in Social Work, and I met Stan a year and a half after I moved to London. I was working in a difficult, stressful job in south London, when we met, and had considered…
Grieving the Grief Years
I had an all-out breakdown a few days ago. The kind I haven’t had in at least a year. I am chocking it up partly to hormones and the damned full moon, but also to everything else going on. Nothing is settled in my life. Most of the time I am used to this, and I ride the waves well. But sometimes it piles up. My career as an artist is sort of like…