Today, my dear and sweet husband, you are not 51. Today is your birthday. You are not here. You cant eat cake or blow out candles or makes jokes about getting older and how time flies. You can’t go and see the new “Peanuts” movie with me, our favorite, which comes out today, on your birthday. We can’t joke around about how you will always…
Widowed Birthdays
Not Growing Old Together
Something I say to my grief-therapist often lately, is that I feel like I’m generally doing “okay”, as long as I don’t think about the future, or let my mind wander there. I feel okay or sometimes even good, as long as I can stay in the present. Do you know what she said back to me? She said: “So stay in the present.” Oh, okay then. Guess I’m done…
Any Other Day
Any other day, I would have opened my eyes at 6:00 A.M., sleepily rubbed my eyes, and shifted my way to the edge of the bed. I would have woken Shelby up, as always, and gone about the mindless morning routine of feeding the dogs, making coffee, watching the news, and determining what clothes I would be wearing to work. Today isn’t any other…
Without Him In It
This week marked another anniversary in the long and winding journey without my husband—his 65th birthday, on July the 2nd. Last year, his birthday came less than a month after he died, and I can’t say I even remember it. I had returned to work the day before, and I must have walked through my day in that office like a zombie on auto-pilot,…
My Magic Man
I’m writing this on Tuesday. It would have been Mike’s 61st birthday. My heart is breaking. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to hurt this much. Last year all I can remember is the day passing in numbness and disbelief. This year somehow I feel more alert to the pain, and it’s been very hard. Over the past 21 months – 21 months yesterday, by the way…
The Tides of Grief
The past week has been hard. I suppose that isn’t surprising… Coming down from a really incredible week surrounding my birthday. I don’t know if this has happened to any of you, but every so often there is a week or a month in which I feel like someone put me in a giant slingshot and plummeted me into my new life. And not in a bad way…
Rebirth on my Birthday
It is 12:40 a.m. east coast time, on Friday, September 26th, and I am writing this blog piece from the Marriott hotel in downtown Toronto, Canada. I am here for Camp Widow, getting set to give my comedy presentation for the 5th time in a row. Sitting in the lobby where the Wi-fi is free on my laptop, exhausted after an almost 12 hour train ride…
Embracing the After Birthdays
Birthdays. It’s one of the hardest parts. My first birthday in this afterlife was just three months after my fiancé died. I didn’t even want to think about my birthday much less have one. We had decided to go to the Grand Canyon that year for my birthday, since I had never been to a national park. Refusing to spend my 30th birthday in bed, I…
Happy Birthday
Yesterday was my fiance’s 30th Birthday. I don’t say “would have been” because it doesn’t make me feel like I am allowed to still celebrate it when I saw that. So instead, I say that it was, and is, the day he turned thirty. Even if he isn’t here physically, saying it that IS his birthday helps me have permission to still celebrate.The morning…
Weighing the Days
Yesterday was a hard day. Exactly a week until Drew’s birthday, perhaps I don’t remember how hard it was last year… but I could swear it’s hitting me harder this year. My body seems so much more aware of the lack of his body, but also just the feeling of him in the space is far more distant now. I downplayed that first sentence… it was a…
Luck O’ The Irish
Ian loved celebrating his birthday with his friends, so last year, on his birthday, we marked the one year anniversary of him getting sick by going back to the restaurant we had to leave so quickly in 2012.Earlier this week I got a call from one his mates looking to see if I was planning to repeat the lunch for the second anniversary on St…
First Thursday
February 11 is a happy day for me (also marked with some trepidation) … it’s my son’s birthday. He who is so much his father, is turning three.But since I generally write ahead of time, making use of the time I can sit in front of a computer screen uninterrupted while he’s in child care, and I’m writing on February 7, John’s birthday…