My heart hurts tonight. And last night. And the night before. It just hurts. I feel sad. I feel scared. I feel everything. Remember those first few weeks and months after the loss, when you literally spent all of your time going from sobbing so hard that you gave yourself a migraine – to sitting on your bed or in a chair and staring at the…
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Year of New Eyes
Im not sure quite how to say this without sounding all “Oprah”, but for me, this year of 2016, feels like an important year. It feels like it already is and will be an important year in my life, for many reasons. And when I type that, a small part of me gets the chills, because I really need to be more specific when I say things such as that and…
The Meaninglessness of Time~
I think, often, of time. What it used to mean. What it meant in our hospice time. What it means in the years since my beloved husband died.Chuck and I spent 24 years of time together. Time that we found AA together, raised a blended family, socialized with friends, worked…we spent our time as many couples do. Being busy but never too busy to…
The Widow Word
Over the years, I’ve been asked many times what I think of the word widow, and specifically if I’d prefer we use a different word that has a more positive connotation to label the widowed experience. When the word widow first applied to me, I told myself that I hated that word. I shuddered every time I used that word to describe myself, and…
Pray to Live
I’ve been thinking a lot the past few weeks about something other than death. Life. I’ve been thinking about life, and the true meaning of it, and how that meaning is different for everyone, and how maybe that meaning changes and shifts when you have been through trauma or loss or grief. I have been thinking about what it all is, what it all means,…
Free To Be Me
This past weekend, I attended and gave my comedic presentation at “Camp Widow” in Tampa, Florida. It was my ninth time attending and being a presenter at camp. Nine times. There are now 3 camp locations, and 3 camps per year. One in Tampa, one in San Diego, and one in Toronto. Each one has the same basic structure, as far as what happens during…
Nightmares
Many years before I met my husband Don, there was an extremely traumatic event in my life. It happened back in 1996, and it was the kind of thing that changes a person forever. The kind of thing that can end up defining you, if you let it. The kind of thing that steals your soul for awhile and grabs at your eyeballs and pulls them out and onto the…
Familiar Roads
On this day, in 1998, exactly 18 years ago, I sat at my brand new computer and logged into my brand new AOL account, and entered a music chat room about 1980’s song lyrics. That night, only one other screen name logged on: Wayabvepar. We typed for 5 hours that night, then for 3 more years before actually meeting in person. Eventually this man from…
Wearing his Clothes
For the first few weeks after Phil’s death anything that had touched his body was sacred. His shoes were sitting where he last left them, his lunchbox remained on top of the refrigerator, and his toothbrush was standing next to mine in the holder. One day I found an eyelash of his and pressed it into a plastic rosary holder for safekeeping. Three…
I Will Never Move On
(reposted from my personal blog: ripthelifeiknew.com , as written yesterday) Last night, I was talking to a new widower friend of mine on the phone, when he suddenly shifted the topic of conversation and posed a huge challenge to me. Im not sure if he saw it as a challenge, but I did. He asked me to do him a favor. When I asked him what the favor…
Nouns and Adjectives
The words we use to define ourselves often begin with the roles we play in life. We each have roots as someone’s child, and grandchild. Family ties may link us as a brother or sister; aunt or uncle; niece or nephew. Choosing to marry creates the roles of husband and wife. Many parents consider the title of mother or father to be their primary…
So What Day
My husband, Phil, used to call Valentine’s Day ‘So What Day’…romantic, huh? He thought greeting cards were a waste of trees; that buying flowers because someone told you to defeated the purpose; and that going to dinner on the big day just to eat from a limited menu and have servers anxiously awaiting your departure from the table was…