***It was nearly 3 years ago that I got my Memorial tattoo for myself. While reminiscing I found the blog I wrote about the experience less than 6 months after he was killed. Since we sometimes forget where we’ve come from in the midst of the grief, healing, and journey that takes place, I thought I’d share this.10.24.07 Nearly 5 hours after…
it is late and i’m still awake, a fit of creativity has settled upon my brain, and has translated into eight fingers and two thumbs, working to pound out the words i’ve struggled to find.tonight i spoke to one of my best friends in the world, and she cried for us. happy tears, knowing, evident in the smile in my photos, the words that i write…
These are the hands of the man who cares for my youngest son. My former suicidal 7 year old. My newly 8 year old. The hands belong to Mark. Mark sees Ezra every Thursday. Mark and Ezra play and Ezra talks to Mark. Ezra says things like: “I’m glad everyone is treating me normal now, only I’m not normal cause I don’t have a dad. and “When my mom…
We’ve moved. Our stuff is in the new house…..but the house isn’t finished. The shower doesn’t work and two of the rooms remain incomplete. Although the garbage and previous tenant’s belongings have finally been removed, we haven’t been able to unpack our stuff and claim the house as ours. We have been staying with friends until it is…
Happiness has pervaded my life, before, during and after my time with liz. and since she died, it’s been my friends and family and stranger friends and music and books and travel and writing and memories and photography and baseball and cheeseburgers and beer and this blog and countless other things that have all been huge sources of happiness…
I’ve come to realize something over the past several years. It’s about a variation of a sentence I’ve heard over and over again. And I would bet that most of you have heard it in the not-so-distant past. I have come to hate ….. no, abhor, this sentence ….. “I could never do that.” Or better yet, “God knew that I couldn’t handle something like…
Summer has started here in Texas and the heat is on. Grayson has started his series of summer camps, and we’re looking forward to our birthday trip over the 4th of July weekend. Ten years old. It’s hard to believe that my little guy will be 10. He was 5 when he lost his dad, and I was so afraid that he’d be permanently damaged by the whole…
It has been a long time since I have really shared my life with a man. Four years, ten months, and seven days to be exact. In that time I have learned to juggle life as a single parent, a single person, a sole provider, the sole tenant on my mortgage…I have become accustomed to the fact that the buck stops with me. For the last two weeks I have…
…. our 27th anniversary. Friday. The 28th. It should have been. Instead, it was the day our oldest child/daughter graduated from graduate school. And I was with her. Just me. It should have been us. But it wasn’t. It was just me. Again.I get tired of it being just me. For everything. Every big day. Every “first day of ….” Every “last day…
Musical Tuesday for me. I went to the Indigo Girls concert this weekend. I loved them in college and it was such fun to see them so many years later. My sister-in-law Leslie and I went and were not disappointed. It was a fantastic show. They closed it out with one of my favorite songs “Closer to Fine”.I’m trying to tell you something about my life…
There was a time that I could not imagine being a widow. There was a time when I didn’t know that widowed people come in all shapes and sizes. There was a time that I knew the dictionary definition of the word sacrifice, but I had no idea how that word fit into the widowhood experience.Since I began leading an organization that creates a network of…
…. there’s a silver lining. Or so they say. Who are “they” anyway? I’m guessing not anyone who lost their spouse. So …. is there a silver lining in all of this? Hmmmmm …. not really. Not yet?Although I guess maybe the changes in me could be considered a silver lining. I know that time is short and that I can’t take anything for granted.
