In the spring of 2014, I was diagnosed with a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. My doctor proclaimed it was the worst case he’d ever seen and classified my case as Myxedema, another term for severely advanced hypothyroidism, a condition that occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone. As January is Thyroid Awareness […]
Taking the Longview
It is pretty special to be able to post on the occasion of my birthday. I note that today, Saturday January 14, is also Organize Your Home Day, an Awareness Observances that encourages us to declutter our homes, lives and ultimately our minds. Last year, on this very day, my family house in Hackensack, New […]
Tapping in to The “Terrible Two-Year”
Posting here each Saturday has been an incredible opportunity. I love when someone tells me they’ve shared my post(s) with someone else who’s lost a spouse or experienced another kind of significant loss. Even those who haven’t have expressed their appreciation for the insight they’ve derived from some of these posts. That is what keeps […]
Observance Breeds Awareness
It seems like every day, week, and month there’s an official Awareness Observance for just about every thing under the sun. For instance, as I write we’re in the midst of Spiritual Literacy Month established in 1996 to encourage us to read books with spiritual themes, we are also currently in the middle of “It’s […]
Ruff Times and Holidays
“The presence and companionship of dogs, the observation of their playful tactics has helped patients on their way back to normal thinking and living.” Captain Wm. Lewis Judy,Founder of National Dog Week (1928) and long time publisher of Dog World Magazine. I realized the other day that as the Saturday Widow’s Voice poster I’d be […]
Seasons of The Mermaid
When I first moved to Southeast Coastal Georgia in March 2020, the Pandemic was in its early stages. In our new clime, however, life went on pretty much as usual with fewer restrictions than in the Northern region we’d just left. March in Southeast Georgia can be quite warm and by April, pool season was […]
Holiday Adaptations
In the fall of 2020, my late husband purchased the Christmas tree of his dreams at a Lowes in Kingsland, GA. After a challenging year Rich looked forward to the joy of the holiday season he’d always loved. We purchased that tree on a very warm southern September day. We’d moved from New Jersey to […]
Dancing with the Scars
In early December of last year, a little peaches and cream ball of fluff entered my lonely life at just the “write time”. The following appeared in Ruff Drafts, the official newsletter of the Dog Writers Association of America (DWAA) an organization on which I serve as a Board Member. It’s a longer read than […]
Some Holidays are Better Than Others
One of the most difficult parts of the mourning process many widowed people experience is the loss of future occasions including holidays and anniversaries. We find ourselves listening to long-time married friends, family members and colleagues as they speak glowingly of their trips and celebrations of decades spent in togetherness. While we are truly happy […]
Waters of Significance
In last Saturday’s post, I shared the continuing process of spreading my late husband’s cremains throughout multiple watery locations. Choosing these meaningful places for this journey has been an important step for me, and others, in the mourning progress and honoring Rich as he’d wished to be. As a watery theme had run […]
“Urning” Places in the Heart
Rich passed on a Thursday. By Friday morning it became apparent that I had to make final arrangements for him. Throughout nearly 30 years together, Rich and I had attended many funerals and services for friends and family members. “Please don’t ever have one of those for me,” he’d commented on numerous occasions after attending […]
Cumulative Grief
When you’ve experienced multiple losses within a short period of time, you may begin to wonder how much more loss you can endure. This is known as Cumulative Grief, when one experiences multiple losses either all at once, or before processing an earlier loss. In coping with the one year anniversary of my husband’s […]