A Simple Dinner Party for Widowed Folk The clutter of food leftovers waiting for containers is evidence of an evening’s gift of food, conversation, kindness, and even laughter! Welcome to the Soaring Spirits Regional Social Group experience! For the first two years of widowhood my inbox featured a regular invitation to join with other widowed […]
Seeking Solutions
Along the Path of Widowhood The cornerstone of my training as a doula comes from Birthing From Within, a process of childbirth education that originated from Pam England’s book, Birthing From Within: An Extraordinary Method of Childbirth Preparation. A few years into my training, I learned a process called Solution-Focused Dialogue. After a year’s practice […]
Poet in Lower Case:
e.e. cummings (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) –e.e.c. i met edward estlin cummings in high school and was carried away by his trademark […]
5 Remarks That Moved Me
at Camp Widow San Diego: Keynote 2023 There is one talk that most everyone attends on Saturday morning of Camp Widow: The Keynote Speech. I’m sure there are some exceptions, but very few since all the latecomers have arrived by then and it is one of a few talks that finds all of us in […]
It’s Hard Being Widowed
Let me count the ways. Inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, How Do I Love Thee? written for her husband Robert Browning-1850. The depth and breadth and height of my love matches the depth, breadth and height of my grief; my soul finds you missing, again and again. …I am thinking today of my […]
Revisiting a Story by the Nasturtiums
On the Eve of Camp Widow San Diego — 2023 It is a joy and a privilege to attend Camp Widow’s 15th Anniversary camp in San Diego this Thursday. A-a-a-a-n-d — I am not packed! This is a revised post from February 2022, offering a vision of hope through the lovely nasturtiums. Studying a […]
Widowed Customs: The Ring
Another 4th of July—another wedding anniversary for the books. Dan left on April 15, 2021, so the first anniversary without him came up just three months after his burial. At just over two years of loss, this is my third time to mark our wedding anniversary without him. On this very public holiday in the […]
Thoughts on Time: Night
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strange relationship with time. I see time as a formidable adversary; time surely sees me as troublesome or unmanageable. In my mind I imagine a cartoon with a tiny me looking up at a huge clock saying, “You’re not the boss of me!” Time and […]
Healing Support Tools: Widowed Peeps
What kind of support do widowed people need? Many people are familiar with the five stages of grief, but mourning a loved one rarely happens in a clear or predictable manner. You might cycle repeatedly through different emotions, or you may feel everything at once. Every widow or widower processes grief in their own way […]
Lost and Found
Do you ever feel lost, but you can’t define it? This is me, of late. Without words to inform my senses. Something in me wants to define my feeling of being lost. This makes me ask, what is it about the known that is less disconcerting than the unknown? Is that actually true? […]
The Best of Men
ONLY A DAD by Edward Albert Guest Only a dad, but he gives his all To smooth the way for his children small, Doing, with courage stern and grim, The deeds that his father did for him. This is the line that for him I pen, Only a dad, but the best of men. Words […]
Healing Support Tools: The Labyrinth
Labyrinths represent a journey or path to our own center and back again. The labyrinth serves as a metaphor for life’s journey. —Healing Consciousness Foundation What is a labyrinth? There are many definitions for the word “labyrinth”. One simple way to explain it is “a series of circuitous paths that lead to the center and […]