I’m on my way to pick up the kids at preschool and decide to stop at Panera to grab a decaf with extra, extra cream and no sugar. I wait in line thinking about all that I have accomplished in my kid-free two and a half hours when I hear the woman in front of me order a Sticky Toffee cookie. I’m transported back in time.I’m in England…
The F Word
F…A…T. I’m a fat widow. Yes I am. You don’t need to give me an awkward smile and insist that I’m not a fat widow. I am and I own it. I give other widowed people a bad name. I shatter the image of the grief-ridden widow/widower by eating and actually enjoying it. And I’ve been doing this for nearly three years now. I feel…
Plus One
Not long after Chris died, I received a wedding invitation addressed to “Wendy and Guest.” It was one of the first visual affronts to my newly-acquired widowed senses. I remember looking at the envelope and wondering, “Who the heck is Wendy and Guest?” I certainly sympathize with the couple who sent the invitation. I’m confident that they…
“Oh, What Shall I Do?”
Chris and I had season tickets to the opera. He was passionate about the art form and I enjoyed it enough to go with him. I continued our subscription after he died and have started a new tradition of bringing a friend or family member with me to each performance.One of the operas I saw last fall was Faust, which is about a man who sells his soul…
Music Was Our Refuge
The epitaph on Chris’s grave marker says, “Music Was My Refuge.” It is a most appropriate way to remember a man who was a church choir director, a pianist and an organist, a community theater actor, a Norwegian Folk dancer, and a longtime patron of the opera and symphony. In the months after Chris died, I started planning a concert in his…
A Wary Merry Christmas
I spent last December 22nd in the emergency room, which isn’t necessarily an unusual place for an extremely pregnant woman to be. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to deliver a bundle of joy but rather to find the source of the unrelenting headache that had kept Chris in bed for almost two days.Within an hour of arriving at the ER, my world started…
My Other Car is a Porsche
You know those bumper stickers that say things like, “My Other Car is a Porsche?” The implication is that the driver isn’t quite satisfied with their real car and that they have a much nicer one parked at home. I can appreciate this sentiment.My “other car” is my other life—the one I was supposed to be living right now complete with a…