One of the most difficult parts of the mourning process many widowed people experience is the loss of future occasions including holidays and anniversaries. We find ourselves listening to long-time married friends, family members and colleagues as they speak glowingly of their trips and celebrations of decades spent in togetherness. While we are truly happy […]
Widowed Anniversaries
Waters of Significance
In last Saturday’s post, I shared the continuing process of spreading my late husband’s cremains throughout multiple watery locations. Choosing these meaningful places for this journey has been an important step for me, and others, in the mourning progress and honoring Rich as he’d wished to be. As a watery theme had run […]
Good Thoughts and Prayers
I’ve found it difficult to recall the rapidly unfolding events that occurred this week one year ago. The beautiful fall weather in the South features lack of the nearly year-round humidity. Clear Cerulean Blue skies. The Scarecrow Festival in downtown St. Marys, GA, the place I now call home. I wasn’t able to recall experiencing […]
The Unconclusive Conclusion
While writing this blog, I was forced to revisit and relive more than just my widowed walk. I dove back in time through many memories I had forgotten or hidden. In reflecting back, how ironic was it that I rushed through the four years of high school and the four years of college only now […]
Take Me to Church
Photos my own, taken at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Geneva, Switzerland Yesterday, unusually, I went to church. Twice. And I spoke. From the pulpit. Yes – really. I had been invited – some six or more months ago – to speak at the Holy Trinity Church in Geneva, an Anglican church. As often […]
Growing Through Grief with Gratitude
Yesterday I felt like I hit the grief guardrail at 75 miles an hour. I knew it was coming and I knew I couldn’t turn fast enough. It was emotionally inevitable and, as much as I wanted to avoid it, I also have been needing it. It was an intimate group of family and friends […]
My Past in My Future
I don’t know how to navigate this. I don’t know how to balance out this future placed bereavement. I have been pressuring myself to “figure it out” because I feel overwhelmed by a lot in life right now. Something has to give or I’m going to crash. My daily routines are way off, and I’ve […]
July 4th – Our Wedding Anniversary
Happy Anniversary, my love. Just a couple of kids who fell in love and were married just out of high school. Who knew we’d spend 51+ years together on this earth? A spark made it possible. The spark dimmed at times, but it never went completely out. We learned how to re-ignite it. We had […]
Delegating, Abdicating, Collaborating, Co-Creating?
Photo of Julia’s Stones my own My next ten days are packed (packed for me, anyway). Quite a bit of work in the coming days. A dinner out with new-to-me-friends of Medjool’s. Some travel to England and then on to Scotland. (My first trip to the UK since before the world shut down in […]
Arrow of Time
I was married to Lee on June 12th, which was this past Sunday. Can I still say that June 12th is my anniversary? Or that June 12th was my anniversary? Should I say that June 12th would have been our anniversary? Using proper grammar can be daunting, especially when referring to a loved one who […]
Fun in Funeral?
I booked the flight for Clayton’s funeral last night. It’s bothering me because a funeral isn’t supposed to be 4 years after someone passes. The celebration of life we had originally planned was put on pause and so has a lot of my growing through grief. Searching for flights and making travel arrangements didn’t cause […]
Humdrum and Bittersweet
Image by Robin Lyon on Unsplash As I reflect on what to write about this weekend – which is what I do when nothing immediately springs out at me – it’s about how used I have become to having complexity in my life. Sometimes I get to the end of the day when I journal […]