It has been hard, but I have accepted that there is no returning to who I was. In the fifth year of widowhood that is before me, I will try to focus on who I am becoming. I will continue recreating myself. And, I will work to become more comfortable with who I am. While I become this new woman, I recognize that both my potential and lost possibilities coexist inside me. This is one of the hallmarks of widowhood. Another dualism I acknowledge is that both grief and hope can coexist in the same heart.
Widowed Anniversaries
Champagne Dreams and Lost Love Legacies
Yesterday was my 42nd birthday. I’m unbelievably grateful for the outpouring of celebration especially on social media where so many of us are finding community during a pandemic. I decided that the day should start with a toast to lost loves and no better way than a glass of Veuve Clicquot champagne – The Widow’s […]
Fall
Each year, I feel myself falter and fall when the leaves change color because I know that Mike’s death date is looming large. Thankfully, over the years, I have learned to trust that I can and I will break my fall using my own grit and grace. With time, I have come to value and appreciate the beauty in my own strength. Now, I believe in myself the same way Mike believed in me. This is big, big stuff. This is Mike continuing to love on me from across dimensions.
I have come to know my own capability. Finally, I see what he saw in me. It is ironic that it took Mike’s death for me to see myself in the light he saw me in. With this reflection, I now have the ability to fiercely love myself – the way he once did. What a way to honor the big love he had for me. In his absence, I can love myself wholly and madly for him and because of him. This is how Mike’s love lives on. And, this feels pretty wonderful.
42 Moons
Main picture by Mark Tegethoff on Unsplash I have long had an uncanny ability to work out time zones (what time is it right now in Sydney where they are 8 hours ahead? Or in Minneapolis which is 7 hours behind? Or if I want a call with someone in New York and someone in […]
Return To Me
Today, I find myself in Texas near Houston. A speaking engagement planned almost a year ago. It has been a long time since I have been able to travel, speak and feel the energy in a room of people. This new world we live in can be suffocating especially for a widowed man who sometimes […]
The Rebranding of a Life…
Life is for the living.
Mike had his life.
And, now I need to focus on mine.
Only he died in 2016.
It would be a tragedy if I buried myself too.
Grief’s Rewinding
It has been 866 days since Clayton past away, 867 days since I said “I love you” and kissed him on the forehead for the last time. Those first few days after he died felt like years. Every minute was the first of that minute without him. Every day was the first Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday […]
731 Days
Two years ago today, the light of my life went out. It was the day that Suzanne left this earthly realm and became universal energy. Today is the second anniversary of her death and at this very moment, I’m hurting. A lot.
Our Third Wedding Anniversary…
When I think about our Wedding Anniversary I feel a bunch of nothing really. Where there should be joy and happiness there is just a huge void. Where there should be happy memories of “the best day ever”, there is nothing. I have nothing to recall because our Wedding day never came to be. So, I just sit with the nothingness that it is. The nothingness of our special day quietly blends into the nothingness that Mike has become. It is sad. Beyond sad really. It is tragic and it hurts. But, I will be “okay”. I have lived through this Anniversary date twice before.
Twenty Five
Twenty five. Twenty-five years. Next week. We only made it twenty-three years, two weeks and one day. Suzanne died on August 19, 2018. Our 23rd anniversary was August 4, 2018. This was a photo we took at dinner that night: Will I ever reach a 25th anniversary? Is it one of those things that I […]
Wrapping Loss in Love
Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash I spend a lot of my time reading about death, dying, and grieving, participating in webinars and holding space sessions with grief experts, people who’ve developed wise perspective on what it is to love, to lose, and to continue living. Apart from two moments since Mike’s death, I have […]
Post Mortem – a year on
This past week we have been honouring and commemorating Julia. (And Mike. And Ed. And Don. Of course). Like we do every day. Of course. But particularly Julia this week. The first “deathiversary”. The first anniversary post mortem. I don’t really know why the one-year anniversary feels like such a rite of passage. It’s not […]