Don Shepherd likes to send me great, big, obvious signs. I never question that it’s him. I just know. One of the signs he sends over and over, is the big yellow Penske moving truck. On Superbowl Sunday, 2005, Don pulled up in a big yellow Penske truck, with his car attached and his cat in his lap, after driving 24 hours to New Jersey from Florida…
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A Hard Battle
Life is a merry-go-round.I’m just riding it until I fall down. I’ve learned that widowed status does not create saints or good people. Good people aren’t created from loss. They can be, but the choice is always available every second of every day. It’s not loss that makes us good or bad people. It’s our choices. We can use that…
Not Lucky, Not Blessed
Id like to write today about the concept of being or feeling “blessed” or “lucky”, what these terms mean to me personally, and how people’s views about faith directly affect their grief thoughts. I know and I respect that each of us has varying and different views on faith, God, and religion. Generally speaking, I think that people should…
This One isn’t for You, if You’re Offended by the F Word~
Fucking widowhoodFucking life without himFucking heavinessFucking memories of you dyingFucking bed sores Fucking hole in the base of your spine where the tumor ate through your bodyFucking having to live without you every damn dayFucking having to wake up and do life in the midst of fucking confusion that is just always there no matter whatFucking…
Much ado About Nothing
Nothing. I’d love to think about nothing. There’s a theory that men can compartmentalize their thoughts and there’s one compartment specifically for nothing. Either that’s a myth or the universe has played a very cruel trick on me. I long to turn my mind off. To sleep is struggle. It was, even before she left me. Now? Near…
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,…
Time Unmeasureable~
My dearest, my most beloved husband, Chuck. Sarge. D. My heart, my heartbeat, the oxygen in my blood, my very breath… You were many names to me over the years. You were many things to me, as I was to you. You were everything to me, as I was to you. Life was daily living for us both, of course. We had our jobs, our individual friends and…
Flowers, Cake, and Change
When you are busy living and surviving and struggling inside your own life, it is often hard or damn near impossible to be able to recognize your own progress, shifts, and changes. Time goes by and you may feel stuck in place, or like things are moving in slow motion or not at all, when the reality may be quite different. Living life and grieving…
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…
Words We Say
I read recently that someone I know through someone else, got back her biopsy results. The tests came back positive. Side note: isn’t it funny that we call tests positive when they tell us we have cancer? Shouldn’t it be exactly the opposite? Negative! Your tests are negative! You have cancer! Especially since our culture is so gung ho on…
The Waiting Game
Anxiety. Grabbing your chest in a tight ball. Stealing your breath from you. Stealing your sleep and your peace and your energy. I’ve been down in Texas a few days visiting for a close friend’s wedding I’m in and each morning I’ve woken up before the sun with anxiety. Anxious about being back home for only a short time. That I am but 3…
Walking in the Snow
It’s very cold here. Winter has settled upon this sleepy town in which I reside. Snow has fallen and ice has wrapped herself around anything and everything within her reach, clutching as if desperate. I, too, am desperate. Desperate to come in from the cold I was involuntarily tossed out into a short while ago. Desperate to come in and feel the…

