Today I read a beautiful article that really got me thinking. During a commercial photo shoot for a show on the Oprah Network – near the end of the shoot – one of the actors requested the photographer to take a few more shots for him. As he stepped back onto the backdrop, the actor began to sob. The photographer captured about a dozen or so shots…
Widowed and Healing
The People I Love…
…… have grown in numbers over the past 6 years. Some people have faded from my life. Some have stayed. Some came in during my “after”. And those have never left. I doubt that they ever will. This past weekend I spent time with 8 of these people. They are 8 of the most amazing women I know. And 8 women that I’m proud, and so very grateful, to…
Day by Day
I’m often still taken by surprise when being able to do some tasks are often a day by day proposition. Mostly these are tasks to do with Ian, but not always. Often this freeze is not so much in the sense of having a ‘bad’ day, but just a day of not wanting to go there. Just prior to Christmas I was working on swapping which rooms are used for…
My Home
I live in a wonderful city now. I’ve become more and more comfortable here. I like the weirdness, the outdoorsy-ness, the coffee shops, the rampant recycling and composting and organic gardening. I like the dogs and the green of the woods and the mist hanging in the west hills. I like the bridges and the dragon boats on the river. I like the…
Lighthouse
I got an email today that made my heart do a little dance. It was from a fellow widow friend of mine, whom I’ve only met online, and who also happens to be a therapist. This was what her email said: “I was with a client yesterday, and I asked her where she has found support online. She sighed and then said, ‘Well, most of the stuff is useless. But…
Another birthday…
…… remembered, but not celebrated. Jim would’ve been 54 today (as I write this it’s Tuesday night). Instead, he’s forever 47. And that sucks. In more ways than one. I hate that his birthday is so close to Christmas …… which is so close to the day he died. This time of the year can be one onslaught after another. And yes, it still brings…
Turning Pain into Love
In 2012, when his death was so fresh, I needed to talk. About the pain, the fear, the agony, the anger, the loss, the accident, the future we will not have, the children we won’t raise, the wedding we won’t share… all of it. I wanted to crawl out of my skin with all the pain. I talked and cried almost every single day to someone about my pain. I…
Hope
Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent. ~Mignon McLaughlin It’s a new year and, with that, I’d like to rewind to the beginning years of Michael’s death. I dreaded a new year. One in which he hadn’t lived. He hadn’t existed. A year in which I couldn’t even refer to the year before of him being…
Hello 2014
A new year. Bringing hopes and dreams for a year brighter than the last. I remember the first new year after Greg died. I did not want it to happen. I hated the passage of time. I did not want to welcome a year in which Greg had never lived. Back in Ye Olden Days (ie – before we had children), we had a tradition of going up to a house near a…
New Year’s Resolutions….
…… whatever. I don’t have any resolutions. I wish that I could say that’s because Jim died 6 years ago. But I didn’t make resolutions before that. I tried, for years …… really. But I found that most years, I failed at whatever it was. Maybe I set the bar too high. Most likely I set the bar too high. But one year I just gave them up.For me,…
Happy
It’s been a long time since I could say without hesitation “I feel happy”. In the time since Dave died, I’ve laughed and enjoyed myself, but always I felt that underlying layer of sadness and shock that dampened everything. It made even laughter a bittersweet act. How could I laugh when he was gone? Lately, though, I’ve felt happy. Not tinged with…
8
12.23.13 Today marks 8. 8 years since the most remarkable man chose me to spend the rest of his life with….and he did…if only for a year and a half in flesh. I prepped the night before…jotting down what great deeds I would do, not only in commemoration of this special day, but the people and universe that surround and house the spirit and…