This week, I am waiting for the upside of the grief wave. I can feel myself coming up for air. I am depleted, and I feel like my ability to bounce back is slowing down or something. With all the dates that are heavy and big for us this time of year, and all the […]
Widowed by Illness
It’s been a year of Yin and Yang
shock & grief / hope ~ ups / downs ~ hurt feelings / kindness unexpected disappearances / lovely returns lots of tears / but also some laughter loneliness / community ~ isolation / travel I made it through all of those “firsts” since Jim died – and all of those memories of […]
Happy National Black Dog Day! 🐕🦺
I am still not sure how we got so lucky. She came to us two days before our lives were forever changed, and I KNOW she is an angel in a dog’s body. Don’t ask me how I know this -because I don’t know- but tomorrow Thursday is National Black Dog Day. So this beauty […]
Thank You, Calgary
What a perfect place for me to be during this hard week of loss and memories … a beautiful park just a few blocks from my hotel, those incredibly beautiful lakes in and around the Banff National Forest, reconnecting and meeting in person some of the widowed friends I met online back in 2020 during […]
Trigger Warning ⚠️
Well, I survived Back to School Night last week. Barely. Last Thursday, after emerging from yet another funk, I showered and got ready for public consumption to go to this thing. I somehow got my cables crossed and got there late after dropping off my daughter at gymnastics 🤸🏻♀️ practice on the other side of […]
This is the week …
Posting this blog 16 years to the day after Vern passed … and spending this important week here in Calgary, Canada, honoring both Vern’s and Jim’s passings. Vern died September 22, 2010 … Jim died September 26, 2025 I do find it rather amazing that my loss dates fall within the same week, as do […]
Falling 🍂
I have always loved fall 🍁 One of our favorite seasons as a family, with the chilly mornings, vibrant colors, coffee, fire pits, pumpkin patches, fall festivals, Halloween and, of course, Thanksgiving. I find it amazing how our bodies and souls, so deeply connected, remember the injuries inflicted on them, as soon as the weather […]
September Morn …
Stay with me awhile I only wanna talk with you Losing Jim has brought back many of the feelings I had when I lost Vern nearly 16 years ago. Of course, those feelings never really went away but were tucked in a safe space most days. Perhaps this is a blessing. Both of my men […]
Substitute for Life 👩🏻🏫
A little over a year after I lost my husband, I also lost my job. The DOGE closing of our main government client, where we provided media training and marketing support in Latin America, did us in. We hung on for about a year without getting paid, hoping and praying that the contracts were going […]
In With The Old 📜
We are in it! A new school year, new challenges, a new routine. Very different from last year and that is, in our case, not a bad thing. I am though, more exhausted than other exhausted days. For that reason, I decided to repost a blog from a few months ago where we got to […]
Voicemail Message ☎️
Ring, ring, ring… ☎️ Hi, hola… You have reached Liliana. I’m not available to get to the phone right now, or respond to your text messages, or pay my bills and freaking parking tickets on time so they freaking double and triple, or keep up with doctors’ appointments, or house maintenance. Also, I started a […]
Ah … the ocean
“The ocean is blue poetry written in a language the soul somehow understands.” Anonymous I am so very happy I decided to schedule this important week at the ocean. And I was wise to break up my drive into two days – and grateful my car held up through that especially hot drive through the […]