Six years after my beloved husband’s sudden death, I finally found love again.  I am deeply, madly, passionately, in love.  It is wonderful.  It is terrifying.  It is crazy weird.  Being in love with two men.    Im not into bigamy.  Im not even into threesomes.  But really, truly …. that’s what this is.  A threesome.  But not the kinky…

It is so very difficult trying to explain to someone who doesn’t know – what Soaring Spirits International and their biggest program, Camp Widow -means to me. Camp Widow is something that you simply cannot comprehend until you have been there inside the environment. And yet, nobody would want to be in the position to be able to attend, because that…

When someone you love dies, you don’t lose them all at once.  You lose them little by little.  Breathe by breathe.  Fragment by fragment.  You lose them hour by hour. Minute by minute. Month by month. Year by lengthy year.  It doesn’t happen all at once.  It doesn’t ever NOT happen.  Pieces of that person, that life, fall away as time goes…

So I moved back to my home state of Massachusetts at the end of last year, after 26 years in NYC, to finish writing my book, live with my parents temporarily, and get back on track financially, after 5 years of struggling pretty hard following the sudden death of my dear husband Don.  Living with mom and dad at age 45 is sobering. It feels like…

Where do they go?  The memories that you shared  with your partner, your person. The moments, that existed,  only between you and he, that now exist, only inside your heart.  That time, that place, that way he used to tilt his head  to the side or fold his arms across his chest when he was looking at me like I was nuts.  Or the way he…

So, almost exactly 6 years after my husband’s sudden death, and after about 2 years of endless dating and even more endless heartache, I have met someone. Not just someone. THE one. Or, as Michele refers to love after loss: “my next great love.” He has finally arrived, and isn’t it about damn time?  It is very early on in our relationship (2 weeks…

After my husband died, I spent a whole lot of time grieving. And existing. And just trying to breathe. In and out. Sometimes more in than out. Sometimes hyperventilating. Sometimes forgetting that oxygen is a thing. Make it through that hour, that minute, that day. Whole lot of time spent sitting in his car that I was left with, in the university…

…is just one month away.  July 13th, 2011, is the day that rocked my world forever. That is the day that my dear, sweet husband died very suddenly of a massive heart-attack at age 46, after only 4.5 years of a beautiful and loving marriage together. In 2012, I started the first ever PAY IT FORWARD FOR DON SHEPHERD DAY. My husband was the most…

Im wondering,  for real, because I really do want to know, will there ever be a time, when something goes wrong in my life, when a relationship ends, or someone else breaks my heart, Again, or I lose a job opportunity, or something happens with my health, or I continue to struggle financially, or my parents get sick, or my kitties die, or  ANY…

Dear Dead Husband,    It will be 6 years next month, since you died.  So, I think that’s more than enough time to conclude the following:  This widow thing?  This “you being dead” thing? This “not what I signed up for” thing? Yeah.  Not a fan.  I’ve decided I don’t care for this. I will, of course, keep trodding along, keep finding new…

Have you ever ….  Stared at your dead husband’s picture, the same one that’s been sitting on your nightstand every single day for over 5 years, and suddenly, for no real reason whatsoever, you don’t seem to recognize his face as his face?    Have you ever ….  Gone into the closet where you keep a few of his things, still, and taken out a…

On March 31st, in NYC, I was honored to be chosen to give a TEDx Talk, at Adelphi University. My talk was about how we, as a society, need to change the conversation about grief and loss and death, and change the way we treat both the people we love who have died, AND those that are left behind to miss and grieve them. The talk was performed live…