Being a widow is a lot of things. Scary. Sad. Lonely. Guilt-ridden. But an unexpected side effect of the loss of my spouse is the humor and hilarity. Maybe I was funny person before. Maybe it has been in me all along. But after spending time again this year at Camp Widow, my cheeks hurt from laughing….and I didn’t spend the time giggling at…
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camp widow 2010
it started off much the same way it did the year before (in a bar), but i have to say that the 2010 version was even better than 2009. why? several reasons. first, i got to catch up with the folks i met last year. so much had changed for all of us, and i got the sense that even the reason we were there had changed. it’s not that we…
Feeling Safe ….
…. is exactly how I felt this past weekend. (Yes, this is another post about Camp Widow …. but I don’t think we can help it.) 🙂 I felt wonderfully safe and secure there. Among people that I already knew …. and among people that I had just met (which means that I have more Facebook friends!!). There are no strangers among widowed people.Only…
Together at Last!
I hadn’t really thought about it until Friday night, but at the Camp Widow welcome reception, it was decided we needed to get a photo of all of the widow’s voice bloggers. It occurred to me then that we’d never all been in the same place physically. Emotionally we are here on the blog daily. Physically? We’re spread across the country. The actual…
Foot Holds
One day I was walking along, minding my own business when I was knocked over the edge of a cliff, down into a deep ravine. When I finally came to after the fall I discovered myself in a dark pit facing a rock wall. The only way out of the ravine, was to somehow climb the wall. The fall to the bottom knocked the wind out of me, and getting up the…
Grief-in-Action
I’m here at Camp Widow in San Diego. I videotaped the room full of us widows clapping. And now that I am trying to post it, I’m not sure it’s working. Frustration is on my shoulders, my wrinkled brow and scrunched up eyes. After an hour of searching and trying solutions, I don’t know if any of them will work and I feel defeated and completely…
Step Outside
I’m here at the 2010 Camp Widow in San Diego and having an amazing time thus far. In the amazing connections I’ve made in such a short time (it’s how we widows work…warp speed), I’ve been recalling something I’ve learned in the 3 years since my baby’s death, but is brought even more to the forefront in an environment such as this, where growth is…
those in the know
Today I begin my journey to the Soaring Spirit’s Loss Foundation’s Camp Widow. I feel as if I am running to the arms of dear friends…..although some of these people I have never met.I will spend my time with a couple of hundred people who know what widowhood is. Really know. Not an abstract idea that is hard to fully wrap your mind around until…
something I didn’t expect
on march 25th, 2008 i had more friends than i’d ever thought i’d have, and more family members than i remembered having.everyone i’d known throughout my life rallied around me in numbers i never could have expected, all of them ready to ready to help me clean my house, (as if i needed a clean house) to feed me (as if i could eat without puking)…
Love After Love …
… is different. Very, very different. I wish I had known that. I wish I had known a widow who could have told me that. Someone who could have warned me. You see, I had only loved one person in my whole life (OK, other than my family members and friends). I had only fallen in love once. And he had only fallen in love once. We both had that…
My Widow Match Friend
When Michele and I first met, we were each about 4ish months into the process of widowhood. We connected instantly via email, and eventually became phone friends, only to move onto being a daily touchstone in each other’s lives. We are separated by thousands of miles, but manage to connect in person at least 3 or 4 times a year. We were 36 went we…
The Power of Two
Since I have been widowed, the single most helpful, comforting, hopeful, motivating experience for me has been meeting other widowed people. I can still recall the moment of relief that I felt when I first sat down for a long conversation with another widowed person. Words tumbled out of my mouth in a way they hadn’t before. Suddenly my pain,…