One of the things I’ve learned – one of the great many things I’ve learned since becoming a widow is that life is change. All things shift, turn on their heads, ebb and flow, and come to an end. We can’t stop it though we may try. I might have thought I understood that before Mike died, but now I really get it. Because something has happened…
Ghost House
I have been back home in Hawaii for a couple of weeks now after spending the holidays back East with my family, and my world has shifted on its axis. We are moved into the new place completely now. After nearly 17 years in that house, I do not live there anymore. I’ve spent many long, grueling hours the past couple weeks moving furniture,…
The Sky is Falling
In true Chicken Little fashion, this week in Hawaii, where I live, there was a scary but supposedly false ballistic missile threat that woke people up or terrified them at the store and farmer’s markets. It has since made international news, to great disgrace to whoever was responsible. Around 8 AM, after having worked the night before and…
Possibilities
When Mike died, that terrible first day, I remember asking a dear friend, in my stuttering confusion and desperation, to let me know how long that feeling was going to last. You know the one. The shock and horror of finding that your beloved husband had unexpectedly died during the night. Yeah. That feeling. That feeling when the ground…
Dead and Gone
My fingers know the letters. I can type as fast as most people can talk. But what to say…what to tell, this day in the middle of all the holiday madness. I can’t write about this. I can’t write about that. Too personal. Ok. But my life is what it is.My husband is dead, and still there are hard things. Doesn’t seem fair. I take it all in good…
Stored Memories
When I was a kid, Christmases were pure joy and fun. It meant cousins, grandparents, decorations, special dinners, holiday treats, and sometimes, winter fun like snowmen and sledding. It meant no school, warm fires, music sing-a-longs and laughter. Pretty soon I grew up. Christmases were still, for a few years, about family and love and gift…
To Know Grief is to Know Love
I can’t tell you how I manage to pull off a post every week, or how I have done so for the past three and a half years here. I get asked that a lot. Some weeks I know exactly what I want to write. Other weeks I feel dry…uninspired, lackluster and done. Then suddenly something will move me. Feeling overcome with emotion in a moment, a vision of…
A New Lease
Another sleepless night. Eyes wide open, I finally get up. I pace through the house, small as it is, investigating this or that I think I will or will not take to the new place, for the millionth time. Thinking about all the things I have already taken to the new place, for the millionth time. Our new place, my boyfriend’s and mine. …
Inward and Outward
Mike is everywhere, and nowhere. I feel him in my bones, like a part of my own body. He haunts my every waking hour. I never forget. It never slips my mind that my husband is dead. I can’t stop the memories that flood in. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing. Shopping, celebrating a holiday, watching his birthday come and go,…
Itching and Aching
It’s official. We signed the lease this week, my boyfriend and I, for the house we will occupy for the next year. I’ve decided to only think that far ahead, and it’s made it a little easier. Because it’s a huge transition, moving from the house I shared with my late husband for so many years. It’s also not a huge transition. I’m only…
Going With It
The big news is, we found a place to rent here in Kona that has agreed to the dogs. It’s only up the block, so moving should be relatively easy. It’s expensive…but thankfully my boyfriend is with us for all the support both emotional and financial that it will entail. It has not come easy. It took weeks for the owner to come around to us…
The Late Shift
I can’t sleep. I worked the late shift again, my usual schedule these days at the restaurant, so I’m not too surprised. Trying to sleep before one in the morning these days is difficult, when I don’t get home til half past 10 at the earliest. One does need to downshift for a bit after work, regardless of the hours. But this time it’s like…