Apparently there are great gifts to be found in profound loss. Or so we’re told. I suppose it’s true for some people. We’re told it’s an opportunity to become more compassionate or more aware or become kinder to those around us. Hopefully most people are already both those things but maybe not. Maybe numerous people live their lives unconsciously.

In life, in culture, we are encouraged to connect with others, with community.  As girls, we imagine who we’re going to marry (a high percentage of us anyways).  Who will we fall in love with?  We date, fall in love, get engaged, marry, and build a deep connection to our person, and society applauds us. Then our person dies and we’re…

Return to me… Please come back… Return to me, with your strong arms That wrapped round me… And made me feel safe and secure No matter what was going on around us.Return to me, with your broad shoulders Upon which I rested my head And listened to your heartbeat… Until our breathing became one breath and I felt reassured and knew, always,…

I’m going to tell you a story.  It’s a Love story…my Love story….a Love story that lasted for 24 earthly years.  My Love story taught me how to trust, it taught me how to love passionately while keeping my own identity, it taught me how to open myself to another person, how to ignite my passion, and how to knock down old walls that no…

My dearest D, It’s been 4 years and one month since you left me. I know that you didn’t want to leave me. If it had been possible, you would have fought tooth and nail, with every breath in you, to stay with me.  You couldn’t…the cancer that ate away at your body demanded nothing less than your life as its’ price.  And on that April…

It is as if I am a ship that is becalmed in the ocean. Stillness all around me, even as I am aware of movement and chatter around me. But my world seems still.  Even as it moves around me. Doldrums is the term used to describe the ocean when the winds have disappeared and ships lay still.  I’ve read of sailor’s accounts of the eeriness of…

Emptiness. It seems this word is the one that best describes my life since I dealt with the trauma stemming from Chuck’s death. It was difficult, when I sought trauma therapy, to accurately describe why his death so traumatized me. His hospice time, and the drama involved in that, though I very intentionally shielded him from the drama. …

I will sing you to me….. These words curve around my lower right leg, from knee to ankle. My 3rd tattoo.  My first one says nothin’ but love, our credo in hospice.  Those words swirl in a circle on the back of my neck, with the circle ending in a small heart, and the circle is left open.  As my heart must be in this new life without him. My…

I wonder, if we, as widows, set ourselves up, if and when the time comes that we step out into the dating world.  *I haven’t dated since my husband’s death, and don’t plan on it, so this is merely me, contemplating the concept* Somewhere back in my second year of widowhood, I spoke about the concept of dating with my daughter, and how not…

I just passed the 4-year mark of Chuck’s death.  This year blew me to pieces.  Every year does, honestly, but this year…wow.  I went to work the day after, but lasted for only 2 hours, at which point it seemed like my choices were go home or run screaming from the store.  Mentally and emotionally, I was so done.  Mostly, I push my way…

What do I do with this 4-year mark? This Friday will be 4 years since I leaned over and gently kissed the lips of my dead husband, after watching him suffocate. After he died, I bathed him, with the aid of our 2 girls.  Then we dressed him in his street clothes.  I didn’t want his body going into the body bag by itself and I remembered that I…

I pause and think sometimes often as to the pressures put upon those who grieve.  Upon widow/ers, certainly, though I know it pertains to pretty much anyone who grieves.  The griefers, as I call them us. What pressures? you might ask, though I know if you’re a widow/er, you know exactly what I’m talking about.Oh, you know…the pressures put…