On Wednesday, I will be leaving for Camp Widow Tampa, and Im really excited. It’s also really emotional for so many reasons. First off, I will be the KeyNote Address Speaker at Camp Widow this year. I still remember watching Michele Neff Hernandez up there on that stage, speaking to all of us broken and […]
Kindness is a Boomerang
This morning, a friend of mine posted a meme on social media that said: “Some stranger somewhere still remembers you because you were kind to them when noone else was.” The truth and simplicity in this statement struck me – about how absolutely powerful and meaningful it can be to have someone show you kindness, […]
Words That Heal
I love words. I love the way they sound, what they mean, how they are said, all of it. When Don Shepherd died suddenly, it was words that saved me. Words that kept me going. Words that gave me pause to think and to reflect, and words written or said by others who had been […]
The Volume Button
Years go by. Days, months, life events. Before you know it, you have been living with the death of your person for almost 13 years. It goes by in a flash, and also, excruciatingly slow. Life goes on, as they say. But sometimes what really sucks is that the constant death of your person also […]
Losing Time
As some of you who follow me here may know, since I have posted about it recently, my dad was diagnosed with dementia with Alzheimers Disease. His confusion, cognitive skills issues, and memory loss have been going on for awhile now, and we have been worried. He finally agreed to get some testing done, and […]
Just Peace, Please
Who else has been on this path – this grief tsunami – for a whole bunch of years now, like me? Who else has been living in the AFTERMATH of loss for some time, and has felt a significant change in what things are important to them, now, today, in this life? Who else has […]
Fearing Change, Changing Fears
I have always been someone who fears change. I think a lot of people do. I also think it takes a long time to really understand that if nothing ever changed, that means that everything would stay the same forever. And if you really understand that, you would not want that, because nothing ever changing […]
Letting it Sink In
Things happen in life. For me, my biggest trauma and grief, of course, was the death of Don Shepherd on July 13th, 2011. It was sudden. Instant. Jolted awake by my new reality, literally. A phone call and a cab ride to our local ER that would alter life as I knew it forever. “We […]
This Christmas
It’s Christmas Eve morning, and after feeding and loving on the kitty, I made myself some coffee and am now sitting down to read more of my book: “The 36 Hour Day”, to keep prepping for how to best love and help my dad, as his disease continues to slowly progress. There is no Christmas […]
The Things That Help
Hello Sunday Readers. Great to see you here. As I have mentioned in some past blog posts here, there are currently some big things going on in my life and in my family’s life that I really can’t share here, or it wouldn’t be a good idea anyway. But one thing I have noticed is […]
Widow Perspective
Going through a lot of “stuff” right now. For awhile now, actually, but “life kicking me in the ass” really picked it up a notch about a week or so ago, and it hasn’t let up since. To put it bluntly, things kind of suck right now. I realize that I say this a lot […]
From Angry to Thankful
Grief changes when life changes; and when life changes, grief changes. But maybe the biggest thing that constantly changes and evolves is US. If we want to. If we choose to. If we allow the grief to be that annoying friend that you just can’t seem to shake, instead of treating her as the enemy. As we […]