• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Widow's Voice

Widow's Voice

  • Soaring Spirits
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors
    • Kelley Lynn
    • Emily Vielhauer
    • Emma Pearson
    • Kathie Neff
    • Gary Ravitz
    • Victoria Helmly
    • Lisa Begin-Kruysman

A Shared Grieving

Posted on: September 15, 2019 | Posted by: Sarah Treanor and Mike Welker

The other week, we stopped by a field of sunflowers on our way home. This isn’t just any field of sunflowers… it is a memorial called Prayers from Maria. Each year for the past five years, this field has been planted with hundreds of sunflowers. Towards the end of every summer, they bloom into their full glory. I’ve seen this covered on the news each year since moving to Ohio, but this is the first time that I had set foot there in person. 

So what is special about this place? It was started because of death, and because of love. Because of the death of a beautiful daughter to a family, who lost a battle with childhood cancer. What has unfolded now is a powerful place for so many to come to have a moment of quiet. What I didn’t realize before stepping through the field, is that there would be notes and prayers, written on cards they provide, tied gentle to the stalks of the flowers. 

As we first entered the main path through the flowers, I was completely overwhelmed by all the messages. Many of them were messages to loved ones who have died. Not just children that died from cancer, but moms and dads and grandparents and friends and spouses. It was beautiful and terrible all at once. The further we walked, the more there were. Message after message. Row after row. So much loss. So much death. But also… so much love. So much deep, enduring, beautiful love. 

This memorial also raises money to do research on the particular type of cancer Maria had – which is rare, aggressive, and has very little research support. I couldn’t help but to think of her family, and how much meaning and beauty has been brought into their world by sharing this grief journey with so many others. 

This experience has stayed with me the past few weeks. It reminded me of just how powerful shared experiences of grief are. It reminded me of Soaring Spirits, and of Camp Widow, and of how much it has helped me on my own journey with grief to be a part of a shared grief experience. I think there is something about sharing that pain that transforms pieces of it into beauty and love and goodness in a way that nothing else can. 

We didn’t visit long. After about 10 minutes, it began to rain, and we went on our way. But that brief moment has stayed with me, just as each brief moment of shared grief has over the past 7 years. I’m reminded and grateful of the chance to share pain with others, and in turn, share love with them too. 

Categories: Widowed Memories, Widowed and Healing

About Sarah Treanor and Mike Welker

Mike and Sarah are both widowed and are now in a new relationship together sharing about their experiences of living on with grief and new love.

Mike lost his wife Megan in 2014 due to complications from Cystic Fibrosis. Together they had a daughter, Shelby, whom you will hear of often from Mike and Sarah as she embarks on her teen years.

In contrast to the lifelong illness they dealt with, Sarah lost her fiance Drew suddenly in 2012. He was a helicopter pilot and died in a crash while working a contract job across the country.

What you'll read from Mike and Sarah will be both experiences from their current life and love as well as the past... "To us, it is all one big story, and one big family. Now being over 5 years since we lost our partners, the fresher wounds are healed, but there are still fears, triggers, sadness... and there is of course still profound love. Love for the two people who brought us together and for each other. With their love surrounding us, we continue living, learning, and loving on."

TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON A BLOG, sign in to the comments section using your Facebook or Gmail accounts, or sign up for Disqus.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors

SSI Network

  • Soaring Spirits International
  • Camp Widow
  • Resilience Center
  • Soaring Spirits Gala
  • Widowed Village
  • Widowed Pen Pal Program
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Contact Info

Soaring Spirits International
2828 Cochran St. #194
Simi Valley, CA 93065

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 877-671-4071

Soaring Spirits International is a 501(c)3 Corporation EIN#: 38-3787893. Soaring Spirits International provides resources with no endorsement implied.

Copyright © 2023 Widow's Voice. All Rights Reserved.