Thanksgiving can be tough if you are living with the death of someone you love. One thing I have learned during this 8-year long (so far) grief tsunami, is that talking about the person I love who died and sharing stories about them helps greatly. Remembering them with love , acknowledging that they lived and they matter, is not only important, but…
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Be Thankful. Or Don’t. Be Wherever You Are.
Be Thankful. Be grateful. So many people have it worse. Do these above statements sound helpful to you? Do they sound like compassionate or empathetic things to say to a person who has been recently widowed? Does this sound like a good way to show you care? I don’t think so. And yet, when I was first widowed , back in the summer of 2011,…
Getting More than You Give
Today I’m exhausted for good reasons, and thinking back to all the many times I have been exhausted for reasons I didn’t want to be. Exhausted from crying so much, or from trying to figure out my life again, or from just trying to do the myriad of ordinary things in life as a widow like buying groceries, going to the doctor or making new friends. I…
Dear Dead Husband
Dear Dead Husband, I will begin by saying that I cant believe thats still a thing. You being dead. Im kind of over it, if you want to know the truth. At this point, I feel I have learned all the life lessons I can possibly learn about death, Ive taken the pain and found the funny, and Ive used my grief to help others. What more do you want from…
Extreme Self-Care
If I excel at anything(And I deliberately use the word “excel”)It is that I practise Extreme Self-CareExtremeSelfCareI am proud of my skill and expertiseHaughty, maybe even arrogantFor without it I too would surely have diedAnd what use is yet another Premature death?None whatsoever Here are some of my pet phrasesAnd if not daily, then Weekly…
Broken Chain
I was recently given a beautiful cross with the poem below. It hit home. Little I knew that morning. God was going to call your name. In life we loved you dearly, in death we do the same. It broke our hearts to lose you. You did not go alone, for part of me went with you, the day God called you home. You left us beautiful memories. Your…
Its About You
For a few years now, I have been writing in this blog each Friday. I love doing it. But there are times when I feel almost selfish. Times when I get bored with my own words and thoughts. I start thinking: “ENOUGH ALREADY about ME!!! Im tired of talking about me!!!” But that is how writing feels. When you are in the moment of writing, it…
The Stress of Being Stressed
This will not be a long post today. I apoligize. I think I just spelled that word wrong. I apoligize for that too. Recently, I got my Real Estate license. Also recently, some very big things have happened that affect my life greatly. Things have changed and altered. The future I was looking toward, finally, now has a different view. Its…
Grateful to Laugh
Last night I was hanging out with my boyfriend of 2 years, and we found ourselves laughing a lot together. Its not unusual for us to laugh together, but lately, we have been going through an extremely hard time , so laughing together felt like a gigantic sigh. A huge relief. Something needed. Something perhaps lost inside all of the stress,…
In Between …
At eight years post-loss, I am somewhere different than ever before, and yet, not quite where I would like to be. I am well past the soul-crushing, hopeless feelings of everyday existence. And still, there are days where my heart feels like it has stopped beating, or like there is a large boulder sitting on it, temporarily. At eight…
Paying Grief Forward
It has been eight years since my husband’s sudden death. In the beginning, there were days where I honestly didnt see myself ever living a life with meaning again. I didnt think I could feel joy again. I didnt know if it would be possible to take the pain and turn it into something that might help others. I didnt have the energy or the…
Underpinnings
When Mike died I felt my foundation shift and collapse. I buried him, but it was me who was buried alive by the wreckage of our dilapitdated life. For a long time I thought that maybe if I stood still he’d come for me. I thought he would somehow find me and save me from the ruins of our lost life. Then, after a while, I realized that Mike…