Sometimes when other women hear that my husband died, their response is oh god I could never live without my husband I don’t know how you do it my husband is my life I just can’t imagine what this is like for you….and such. They’re speaking honestly and truthfully and I’m sure they wish to convey every sort of empathy and sympathy…
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Food, My Old Friend
Well it’s been just over 4 years since my husband’s sudden and awful death, and today, I am still grieving. I am grieving food. I am grieving and mourning potato skins, mashed potato with gravy, french fries, home fries, potatoes au gratin, baked potato with sour cream and bacon and cheese … shall I go on? There are so many things one can do…
two-word lines
you died heart shattered Breathing cut eyes stung pulse raced sweat poured body shook memories pained i drove marriages happened babies birthed life continued hearts wept life awry you died…
Happy for You, In Pain for Me
If there is one thing I have learned in the 4 years of being widowed, it is this: Pain and joy can and do exist in the same breath. Excruciating sadness and ecstatic happiness can be felt in the same exact moment. Inhale joy, exhale pain. That’s just how it works when you’ve lost your whole world in 2 seconds flat. Nothing is simple anymore.
Fragments and Words~
Believe it or not, I am sometimes at a loss when it comes to writing my weekly blog. Not because I’ve run out of words but because it’s so hard to find other words to write that I haven’t already used. For me, the longer the time since Chuck’s death, the more intimate it becomes to me. And the more intimate it becomes, the fewer words I…
Maybe
Last night, I had tickets for “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” They took a long time to get, like months and months and months, and it finally happened. I was finally there in the audience. I have lived in NYC for two decades now, so I have been to tapings of quite a few shows over the years. David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, and others.
Knowing in the Now~
I used to think a lot of things about grief that I don’t think any longer.I used to think that you couldn’t hold two thoughts in your head at one time. Wrong. In the 2 years and 3 months since Chuck died, I’ve realized that I can carry on a conversation and be engaged with others while simultaneously flash-backing in my head to times and…
The W Word~
Widow. It’s a loaded word, isn’t it?I use the word in reference to both women and men, or I write the word widow and just add a slash and an er at the end. Because I’m a bottom line type of person, I appreciated best the definition from Thesaurus.com. Noun: woman with dead husband. That definition suits me primarily because it isn’t…
Dying
So this past Monday, July 13th, was the 4 year “anniversary” of my husband’s sudden death. (I’m putting that word in quotes because I don’t like that word to describe the day someone died. It makes it sound like a great big party or something to celebrate.) My once a month session with my grief counselor happened to fall on that day, so I decided…
JesusMaryandJoseph is all I have to Say About This~
What’s weird about this is that I haven’t even entered into the world of dating. And yet I hear from a man I met along the road in my travels, a man who is a widower, a man who is a veteran, who took it upon himself to read something huge into 2 brief meetings over a 2 year period, and, upon realizing that I don’t return his affections, also…
Pinata
I am a word-nerd. I love words and poetry, and similes and metaphors and illiteration, and sometimes the way that somebody words something or the way they write something, can change everything for me. It can make me see things in a whole new way, or bring to me to a deeper level of understanding about something that I never would have had…
And the Plan is…
Thank goodness for outside observations offered by those loving people who surround me. Thank goodness for their perceptions that are gently offered when all I have to offer is what seems to me to be nothing but confusion. My self-perception is off, skewed, and, generally speaking, not terribly trust-worthy. I feel confused and aimless and the…