This July 13th will be the 5-Year mark. 5 years since my beautiful husband Don, left for work, and never came home. 5 years since I got that terrible bone-chilling phone call that jarred me awake at 6:30 am, and changed my life forever. 5 years that I have been a widow. In addition to this being my fifth year of widowhood, it also brings with it…

So let’s get right to it. For the first 3.5 years after my beautiful husband died, the very idea of dating or “someone else” literally made me sick to my stomach. It made me feel physically ill, and I couldn’t even discuss it without having a slight panic attack. Around the beginning of year 4, there was a slight shift inside me, for no reason…

When the person you thought you would spend your whole life with is dead, there’s this weird thing that happens each and every time a person of fame or celebrity dies. It kind of goes something like this:  Holy Shit! Prince died! I have to tell Don, he LOVED Prince! Oh, shit. I can’t tell Don that Prince is dead, because Don is dead too. Well,…

So it happened.  Yesterday happened, and Im still here. Still breathing. Still alive.  Yesterday was April 13th, exactly 4 years and 9 months since my husband’s sudden death. Why is this so significant? Because Don and I got to enjoy the honor of being husband and wife, for exactly 4 years and 9 months. Then, on an ordinary Wednesday much like…

My heart hurts tonight. And last night. And the night before.  It just hurts.  I feel sad. I feel scared. I feel everything.  Remember those first few weeks and months after the loss, when you literally spent all of your time going from sobbing so hard that you gave yourself a migraine – to sitting on your bed or in a chair and staring at the…

Im not sure quite how to say this without sounding all “Oprah”, but for me, this year of 2016, feels like an important year. It feels like it already is and will be an important year in my life, for many reasons. And when I type that, a small part of me gets the chills, because I really need to be more specific when I say things such as that and…

I’ve been thinking a lot the past few weeks about something other than death. Life. I’ve been thinking about life, and the true meaning of it, and how that meaning is different for everyone, and how maybe that meaning changes and shifts when you have been through trauma or loss or grief. I have been thinking about what it all is, what it all means,…

This past weekend, I attended and gave my comedic presentation at “Camp Widow” in Tampa, Florida. It was my ninth time attending and being a presenter at camp. Nine times. There are now 3 camp locations, and 3 camps per year. One in Tampa, one in San Diego, and one in Toronto. Each one has the same basic structure, as far as what happens during…

Many years before I met my husband Don, there was an extremely traumatic event in my life. It happened back in 1996, and it was the kind of thing that changes a person forever. The kind of thing that can end up defining you, if you let it. The kind of thing that steals your soul for awhile and grabs at your eyeballs and pulls them out and onto the…

On this day, in 1998, exactly 18 years ago, I sat at my brand new computer and logged into my brand new AOL account, and entered a music chat room about 1980’s song lyrics. That night, only one other screen name logged on: Wayabvepar. We typed for 5 hours that night, then for 3 more years before actually meeting in person. Eventually this man from…

(reposted from my personal blog: ripthelifeiknew.com , as written yesterday)  Last night, I was talking to a new widower friend of mine on the phone, when he suddenly shifted the topic of conversation and posed a huge challenge to me. Im not sure if he saw it as a challenge, but I did. He asked me to do him a favor. When I asked him what the favor…

So, while I never like to assume anything or get too excited about things and then end up being let down, I have to say that the first month of 2016 has started out very positive and active for me. So many things have happened in the past month alone, and other things are in the midst of happening right now. A writer that I respect wrote an entire…