I live in Small Town France. In a village, actually. It’s a lovely, charming village called Sergy, nestling under the Jura mountain range, and looking across (over Geneva, Switzerland) towards the Mont Blanc. Magical scenery. Four proper seasons, each lasting 3 months. The kind of place where, when it’s Spring, Spring is my favourite season. […]
Multiple Losses
When the Volume Gets Cranked Up
And sometimes, when that other life slams into me, it feels like both of these separate worlds are cranked up to 100% volume simultaneously and it’s incredibly traumatic.
Smoothing Out the Sea Glass
The intense emotions of losing Clayton are fewer these days. I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. Double-edged sword I suppose. On one hand there is constant aching you can expect day after day. On the other hand you find reprieve from the bands of meteorological mess. Joy slips in, you drop […]
Validation Matters: Five not Three
I have had a tough week. First, hearing difficult health news regarding someone I care about deeply. Then being the recipient of highly confrontational/aggressive behaviour from family friends that I cannot even begin to comprehend at this stage. Ending with the words, “do not contact us again”. I need an outlet for this extra bleuch. […]
Grief, Milestones, and Motherhood
Maybe the very hardest part about being a mom as someone who has lost their own mother so young, is that I cannot ever turn off one wish. That strongest of wishes that I could will a miracle upon miracles for her and bring her mother back.
Russian Mountains
Last week, on Thursday 6th February, I was having “a good day”. I had been for a long swim early in the morning and felt good in the water. I had a calm-ish day planned in the beautiful office space I have on Thursdays – just a few calls planned during the day, and most […]
Life After Death Through Three Lenses of Change
In my recent experience learning about Human Dynamic Systems, one of the frameworks I was introduced to was called “Three Kinds of Change”. It posits that there are three types of change we face, and knowing what kind we are experiencing is important to helping us find appropriate ways of working with it. It occurred to me to look at aspects of…
A Good Week?
It’s been a good week. By most objective and subjective measures, it’s been a good week. For me. And I realise it’s been a horrendous week and few days for anyone who is newly widowed, grieving, going through date landmines, dealing with death-admin. I am not a follower of Basketball, American or any other type, but god knows I have some…
Sticky Issues
When I was turning 20, (back in the last millennium, and indeed more than a decade before its end), a few people asked me, “what do you want for your 20th birthday?” I answered, “Twenty years between now and when I am 30”. I thought it was a very clever answer. And it was also an honest answer, based on my worldview at the time. My…
Too Many Deaths. Really. That’s Enough Now
I have just come back from what should have been two lovely days away with my Medjool. My new love. My number two. (Not Second Best. Just Number Two. Subtle but Important difference). Some of our time away was lovely – truly relaxing, soothing, stunningly beautiful, comforting, renewing, and more. And some of it was just plain horrid. For me.
997, 998, 999, 1000
Today is Friday 3rd January 2020. 3/1/2020 Or 1/3/2020 if you’re somewhere in North America, but that looks plain wrong to me. And anyway, that would be my dad’s birthday, 1st March. Not my uncle’s birthday, 3rd January. Both healthy, sporty, fit 81-year old men. 82 now for my uncle. Today is 1000 days since Mike died. In about ten minutes,…
Mixed Up Emotions
I noticed Kelley Lynn put up a couple of lovely questions on her Facebook page in the run-up to Christmas. It went along the lines of: Tell me, what/who are you missing? And if you’re joyful, then say more about that It’s Christmas morning, and I am sitting in bed. No rush here, because for over a decade, Mike and I said to our guests,…