Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles todayTomorrow will be dying. -Robert Herrick Robin Williams died this week. Too early. He was in pain. Hard for us all out here who didn’t know him personally to imagine this, seeing only what he gave us in his performances – so much laughter, so much…
Stormy Weather
Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky Stormy weather Since my man and I ain’t together, Keeps rainin’ all the time – Stormy Weather, Billie Holliday As I type this, not one, but two hurricanes are barreling their way towards the Big Island of Hawaii, where I live. Honestly, I really just found out about all of this on Tuesday. Since Mike…
Swimming
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming… -Dory, Finding Nemo Mike was an enormous presence – truly larger-than-life. He had a childlike spirit; a wondrous, awe-filled approach to life, loved having fun and pushing the limits. A geek his entire life, he obsessed about things like Star Wars, Robin Hood, Doc Savage, Lord of the…
My Mind’s Eye
Sometimes I’d swear Mike is here with me. I keep getting the sensation of his presence…or maybe, my mind and heart are just working overtime to remember. To remember how it felt when he was in the room with me. The sound of his breath, his footsteps…how he looked, the familiar freckles on his forearms, his latest mustache creation, his…
Seeds of Change
Growing up in Virginia my parents always had a lovely garden. They still do, actually. Every year they compost and dig and plant and in the summers appear beautiful tomatoes, beans, eggplants, lettuce and lots of other things. I wasn’t much into digging in the dirt when I was a kid though, so when I moved into my first house with Mike in Los…
A World of Support: Camp Widow
When I found the Soaring Spirits International website, just after I’d finally gone online with my story and shortly before I became one of the seven widow’s blogging here at Widow’s Voice, I found a deep solace in the smiling faces on the photos of past events at Camp Widow. Here was a group of people dedicated to a beautiful community of…
Alien Life
My life feels surreal. A year and a half ago things were purring along with a familiar rhythm. My days were kind of predictable. I was married. I had a house. Things to do. People to take care of. Routines. I felt in control. Ha, laughed the universe. Now I feel like an alien being..like I was transported to some other planet after…
So, What Do You Do?
I hate that question. But it’s always going to be there, isn’t it? When you meet people, it’s one of the standard getting-to-know-you questions and you just can’t avoid it. I guess if I had a “normal” career it would be easy to sidestep the “I’m widowed” answer, which I’ll admit, I used a lot in the beginning after Mike died. I didn’t really…
Chop wood. Carry water.
There is a saying in Zen: Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After Mike died I couldn’t function coherently at all for about a week. I couldn’t focus on the basic necessities of cooking, cleaning, errands…even driving. I really could not drive…
Daydream Driving
I was driving around town the other day and I suddenly became aware of my thoughts. You know how when you’re driving sometimes it’s kind of by rote, and you forget how you got where you were going because you’re so busy chewing on some memory or idea in your head? I paused at a stoplight and looked around. I realized I had been thinking about…
One of Those Days
My car broke down. Again. It’s been acting up quite a bit lately. I took it in and they said it needed new struts. That wasn’t cheap. But it was still making weird noises and behaving strangely. A few weeks ago it didn’t want to start…then it finally did, so I immediately drove down and had a new battery put in. Then a few days later…
What grief is
Most people have heard about the so-called five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – modeled by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. Even then, she clarified that these are not the only emotions felt during the grieving process, nor do they always appear in this order. It is now…