I’m experimenting. I’m making decisions that go against my nature and against what I’d like to do, and, instead, I’m doing shit that is way out of my comfort zone. These decisions wouldn’t have been outside my comfort zone when Chuck was alive, but they have been, and remain so, now. Grief changes us, doesn’t it?In order to be…
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At the End of the Day
I feel like I have covered this grief topic in writing at least 10,000 times since my husband’s death. I also feel like no matter how many times I express it, there really is no way to ever properly express what this is. This, being the loneliness and longing that comes at the end of the day, in that space where my husband’s life used to…
Bearing What isn’t Bearable but is Borne~
How do we bear it? Bear the unbearable, I mean? Husband, wife, lifelong partner…there are so many names and relationships, so many labels that our world uses to describe the love between a man and a woman. Or two people of the same gender. It doesn’t matter, really, does it? It’s just about the love and then it’s about the death of…
A Grieving Friend
On Thursday I received a phone call from a woman who wanted advice on how best to support her friend whose husband died two months ago. She was at her wits end with her friend who called her crying hysterically because she’d just left a drive through restaurant that she and her husband used to frequent together. This friend said to me, “I just…
Nobody Else Can Die
I got some news last night that I did not want to hear. A phone call from someone in my family, letting me know they were diagnosed with something. Honestly, I don’t mean to be so vague and mysterious, but I feel the need to write about this because that is how I cope, and because I cant really think about much else right now except THIS. At the…
Holy…What is~
Today is 2 years since I began my Odyssey of Love, towing my pink-trimmed T@b Teardrop trailer behind my pink car. December 1, 2013. I was riddled with anxiety, never having towed or camped prior to my beloved husband’s death. I knew, even on the night he died, that continuing a life on the road without him would require changes in how we had…
Thanksgiving Blues
I had a good day today. It was a nice day that I was lucky enough to spend with really good, really dear friends. My own family is 4 hours away in another state, so getting to them over Thanksgiving isnt usually possible, due to the short time off I have from work. So, for the past few years, it has become almost a new tradition for me to spend…
Gratitude, and my Lack Thereof~
This time of year puts an enormous amount of pressure on people in general, doesn’t it? Add in the hugeness of grief and it can be overwhelming in the extreme. Since Chuck’s death, I’ve become a perfect Buddhist. Which is what he was, philosophically speaking. Stay with me here…that wasn’t a random statement. Thanksgiving, or any of…
The Word Widow
I’ve been asked 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 the unwanted situation in which I…
Echo
There is a lot of anxiety in my life lately. Things are happening in the world. Frightening things. Scary things. School shootings, ISIS, bombings, possible war, so much unrest and just crazy terrifying stuff. I have found myself tied up in knots a lot of days over these things, or sometimes unable to let go of anger and rage at these things or at…
Be Warned. Capitol Letters Used Frequently~
This is a rhetorical question but one that I just need to write out loud.Don’t all of you wonder, in a dazed and yet horrifyingly clear way, how the FUCK you’ve done this shit? Lived since your dearest beloved died, I mean. Seriously, sometimes I just stop and think holy shit I’ve survived for fill in the blank years without him/her, when I…
Thanksgiving Through the Widowed Years
On my first widowed Thanksgiving Phil’s empty seat at the dinner table represented only my personal loss. Knowing he would never again sit bside me as we spoke aloud the things for which were grateful, around our Thanksgiving table, made the empty space beside me pulsate in my mind’s eye. My heart radiated pain, and sitting through the meal…