It takes a long time…. to get from there …. to here. It has taken me almost 4 years to get here. Four years that have seemed like one day …. and forty years …. all at the same time. Six years before Jim died he had an accident on his family’s farm, at Thanksgiving. As an aside, it seems that the big events in his life, and therefore, in…
Widowed and Healing
Cliff Diving
Lately I’ve been taking some risks with my emotions. I don’t know if I’m feeling stronger, or that I am learning that memories can begin to heal me. For the longest time I didn’t look back to any of my prior writings. I put pictures and albums away, and have yet to unpack them from my move last year. Yet, in the last week I have begun opening some…
Not Alone
There was a real chance that Maggie would have died that first night we were in the hospital back on January 6, 2007. Despite our dreams, our plans, our love and our forever-together commitment, I’d truly be alone. As she slept soundly in a cozy, drug-induced haze, I felt like it was me against all the evil in the world… and the evil was…
Hope Personified
The people in this photo have experienced despair. These smiling faces have cried buckets (okay maybe an ocean) of tears because someone they love is not coming home, ever. Some of us were called to an emergency room or opened the door to a uniformed officer who told us the news that would change our lives; while others sat by a bedside day after…
Midnight in Paris
I walked by the building, intentionally, on the way home from seeing Woody Allen’s new film “Midnight in Paris”, a poetic reflection on the seeming attraction of former eras. The access to the building is now sealed. Not just boarded over with plywood that I could pry loose. Not even with brick that I might be able to chip away with the right…
to me….three year ago me.
I will never be able to deliver this letter to myself three years ago in the past. But I can post it here and hope that it will offer some comfort and solace to some of the widows/widowers who come after me ….Dear Me (and You), I know you feel that you died in the moment that you lost Jeff and that you will never have the desire to live again.
I get by with a little help from my friends
As I write this, hundreds of widows and widowers are half a world away at Camp Widow. Finding others who don’t look at them with pity, but with knowing. With love. With friendship…..and while part of me would love to have been able to go, the other part of me knows that it is just not logistically nor financially possible right now (and no,…
An Emotional Time ….
…. was had by all. I am at the San Diego airport, waiting for my flight back to Houston. I am spent. I am exhausted. Physically and emotionally. And I know I’m not the only one. But it’s a good exhaustion. And I know I’m the only person who thinks that.Camp Widow 2011 was a huge success. I’m not talking about a “business success”. Yes, it’s…
Why I go to Camp….
Each year for the past 8 I have participated in the Relay for Life sponsored by the American Cancer Society. As part of fundraising efforts, we have personal pages telling people why we “relay”. I was thinking yesterday as I was traveling home from Camp Widow about the reasons why I come back each year and continue to work on it in the months in…
Something Tangible
There is nothing like a strong embrace. It’s purposeful. It’s grounding. And, it nurtures my soul. I, along with 275 other widowed individuals, attended Camp Widow this weekend. The workshops were great. The wisdom shared was inspiring. And, all of us left with a renewed spirit of hope. I haven’t been touched like this in a very long…
Love
Hey Guys, came upon these at another great blog site . I especially like 4 and 6. Take care, T4… My heart grew somber with grief, and wherever I looked I saw only death. My own country became a torment and my own home a grotesque abode of misery. All that we had done together was now a grim ordeal without him. My eyes searched everywhere for him,…
Plus One
Not long after Chris died, I received a wedding invitation addressed to “Wendy and Guest.” It was one of the first visual affronts to my newly-acquired widowed senses. I remember looking at the envelope and wondering, “Who the heck is Wendy and Guest?” I certainly sympathize with the couple who sent the invitation. I’m confident that they…