And once again, we are sooo close to another New Year. And, Lynn’s Angelversary (Death Anniversary) is December 3. So for these two reasons, the month of December feels like a big ol’ transitional, reflective, “purgatory” type of mini-chapter. Last year in December, I also helped sell my childhood / my parent’s home, which they […]
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Every Day is a Holiday
There are literally 45 minutes remaining in Christmas Day 2025 as I begin to write this post. Having just spent time on a variety of sites for the widowed on Social Media, many commenters were counting down the minutes and hours for the day to be over. Many more relayed how they’d dreaded the days […]
Holiday Adaptations
This week I spent some time in my former residence in St. Marys, Georgia. With its recent tenants moved out, I haven’t spent much time in that house for the last two years. With a new development currently being constructed literally in my own backyard, the woods that once lined that property have been replaced […]
Sign, Sign. Everywhere a Sign
Do you believe we can receive signs from our loved ones? I do. Some may say I’m doing a bit of reaching on this. Maybe. But if we can find something – anything – that helps us navigate through our loss, to help ease some of the pain, then why not grab it? After Vern […]
On the Scent of Home
Four years ago December 9th, I adopted an adorable Maltese-mix puppy out in San Diego. I’ve written before about Quint’s arrival in my life just seven weeks after Rich’s passing. Quint, named for Robert Shaw’s character in JAWS, began his life on the very same day Rich entered the ICU beginning what would become the […]
Moving Parts
As we are just about through the first week of December, I realize that this is the third Christmas spent here in Old Florida. For those who may not know, I moved here two years after the passing of my husband, Rich. I was content in the home in Southeast Georgia that Rich and I […]
What if We Met Today?
I was chatting with a newer friend recently, and we were comparing how we were in high school. I made a comment like, “I wonder if we would have hated each other / not gotten along in high school!” This made me think, would Lynn like me now? What would it be like if we […]
Passing Holiday Milestones to Better Days Ahead
Just a few days ago, an archived Facebook photo from 2021 that I’d posted the Thanksgiving weekend four weeks after Rich’s passing, appeared in my Feed. At that time, my elderly mother had come to stay with me and although I truly wasn’t into holiday decorating, for her sake, I did. That memory made […]
The Immeasurable Power of Gratitude
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” –Melody Beattie Gratitude snuck up on me today. Gratitude is a wily beast! It captured me in a google search and surrounded me in its giant warm hug. It came to me through a poem from Melody […]
The Best Dog I Never Needed
When I “ran off” to my new life in rural Northeast Central Florida in September 2023, the last thing I needed in my life was a new dog. As I’ve written before in previous Widow’s Voice posts, however, i think that dogs seem to enter our lives often when we don’t even know how […]
Getting into The Write Spirit
Last week I wrote about being inspired by my trip up North to New England for a visit with family. I relayed about how thrilling it was to tour the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts and my visit to a gallery in town with some beautiful landscapes by local artists and how I wanted […]
Unfinished Business
I awoke from a dream about an old friend, whom I’ve neither seen nor spoken to for many years. I still harbor fond feelings for her, despite the long passage of time. In my dream, I had made up my mind to reach out to her, only to learn (somehow) that she had died. In […]