Today is the birthday of Don Shepherd. (November 6th. This was written yesterday.) He would have turned 57. Im pretty sure. Ive lost track. Does it even matter? A decade after his sudden death, do the numbers really matter? Yes. I suppose. And also, not really. Ten years into this life-altering loss, the concept of […]

So Wednesday was my Wedding Anniversary – to the dead guy. Or as I like to call it: my “would have been 15 years anniversary” Anniversary. It was also my first wedding anniversary to the dead guy, where Im a married woman (to the very much alive guy.) There really is no way to describe […]

Like many of us who were forced upon this path of widowhood, I used to hate the word widow. Hated it with a vengeance. It made me shiver and it gave me chills. It made me feel sick to my stomach in ten billion different ways. When this tsunami of sudden death was thrust upon […]

Back when I was a kid, growing up in smalltown Groton Massachusetts, one of the very first people I met was a boy named Scot. Throughout our entire childhood, Scot and I were very close friends. We were inseperable. We were the kind of friends where whenever someone would mention one of us, they would […]

Last Sunday I turned 50 years old. Nick and I had a big, outdoor party at our new home. It was a combination birthday / housewarming event. To keep things safe, we kept the invites to local friends and family, held it 90% outside, and basically did all we could to maintain safety precautions. There […]

This will be a fairly short post today. We have been slowly moving into our new home, dealing with endless boxes and “stuff”, and I am exhausted. Also, last week, my husband Nick’s nephew Jimmy died. He was 41 years old, and he struggled with a lifelong battle of addiction. Yesterday we drove an hour […]

About a year and a half ago, my husband Nick and I (he was then my boyfriend) moved into our apartment together. One day later, covid hit, and pandemic rules went into effect, making it almost impossible to shop for or receive furniture, bed, and other things we needed for our new place. Amazon became […]

So, right now, in Massachusetts, we are experiencing remnants and pieces of Hurricane Henri. Its just getting started, and we are set to have high winds and torrential downpours today and into Monday. If we get it as strong as they are saying we will, it will be the first storm categorized as a hurricane […]

After living with the loss of Don Shepherd for an entire decade now, one thing is for certain that I never question or no longer worry about … I will never, ever forget him. I wont forget his crooked smile, or his enormous laugh that was sometimes 92% in his shoulders shaking like a small […]

Anytime I do anything in my life after loss that I never got to do with Don because he died – it gives me this nervous feeling in my gut. I get all shaky and nauseous and I feel faint and hot, like I might fall down. People always tell me “dont feel guilty for […]

So today, my Italian side of the family, my mom’s side, the “Vecchios” – (I know – we sound like something straight out of “The Sopranos” ) – is getting together at my cousin Nicky’s house for a ginormous family reunion. It’s the kind of family reunion we used to have every single summer, back when there […]