Today, Megan would have been 37 years old. This is the fourth birthday since her death, and I can confidently say that they have gotten a bit easier. I’m not a ball of snot and tears, or missing her any more than I already do. She’s s imply “in focus” today. There is no other way to describe it but “in focus”. On any given day,…
Pixel Memories
Something that Megan and I did every year or two was get family photos taken. While we had thousands of “candid” pictures, taken from our phones or old point-and-shoot devices, we were never posed, and neither of us were exactly professional photographers. We would make the appointment, pack up a few various pieces of clothing, and head to…
Edited Memories
As Sarah, Shelby and I near the time to depart for our summer vacation, I am reminded of just how different things were, and I am finding some appreciation of the very fact that as a widower, those differences weren’t always convenient. We’re traveling to my favorite place on earth, the Great Smoky Mountains, at the end of July. Megan and I…
Let it Be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYfEBY9NM4 It’s one of those “jumbled” days, where it feels like I have nothing worth sharing with the world. Alison shared the same sentiment in her writing this past Wednesday. I’m approaching four years of widowerhood, and I’ve been writing here for three and a half. What else am I to say? I…
The New Crew
Tomorrow, Wednesday, is officially the beginning of “Drewfest” 2018. It’s an annual summer get-together of Drew’s friends, usually taking place somewhere in Texas, with the specific goal of having a fun weekend together as if he was still around, yet remembering he’s not. It’s a great endeavor, and one that in and of itself should…
A Friend I Never Knew
As luck would have it, today is Tuesday, my day to post my rambling here on Soaring Spirits. It is also the 6th anniversary of Drew’s crash, and the 4th trip around the sun since I began getting to know him. Through stories told by Sarah, his parents, and his friends, I’ve made a friend…a sort of widow pen-pal, in a way. It’s odd,…
Quality Time
The way the math works is that Shelby was born eleven and a half years ago. Megan died when she was seven, and Sarah came into our lives when Shelby was eight. That means that Sarah has had approximately half the time, at this point, that Megan had with Shelby. A third of Shelby’s life has been with Sarah. Somehow, Sarah and I got into a…
Semper Fidelis
Yesterday was memorial day in the United States. Every year, on the last Monday in May, we Americans fire up the grill, go to parades, ignite fireworks, buy red-white-and-blue everything, and celebrate the unofficial start of summer. We hang our flags, complain about the heat, and have a drink or four to commemorate the day off from work.
1273
1,273 days. That’s how long I have been a widower, as of this very moment. It’s an arbitrary number…over 1,000, not quite 1500. Not an even number, nor a prime number. It doesn’t signify a specific milestone or even an approaching one. It’s just Tuesday, 1,273 days since Megan’s death. I’ve now been through 3 of her…
How-to: Mother’s Day
As Mother’s Day approaches, I always tend to think of Megan a bit more. Many everyday things become somehow intertwined with a memory or anecdote about her, simply because she was Shelby’s mother. Even mowing the lawn brings thoughts about the fact that she had to close all of the windows in the house due to the smell of fresh cut grass…
Ink to Remember, Part 2
I’m going to do the easy thing today, and feed off of Sarah’s sunday post. I was in the woods for the first time in a while this past weekend, while Sarah’s sister came into town for a few days. They got to have their weekend together, while I got 24 hours or so next to a campfire. Her sister got her first tattoo on Saturday. From her…
Make Your Past
What do I think about on these Tuesday mornings, 3 ½ years after Megan died? It’s a question that I generally ask myself on the way into work, in preparation for publishing some kind of anecdote, observation, or predicament here on Soaring Spirits, in the hopes that a person will read and experience a “me too” or “oh wow, I never thought…