Main image by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash Our house has long needed a lick of paint, new staining and varnish on wooden floors and stairs, mouldy patches on bathroom ceilings scraped off and refreshed with white paint, new lights/lighting, new curtains sewn so that they match better with whatever is around… And that […]
Widowed by Illness
The Grief Graduate
It’s been almost 4 years since Clayton died. I was struck by that fact this week. I’ve been without him for as long as I was in high school. The biggest difference is that my schooling in sadness occurred much faster than K-12. Year 1 felt like being a scared kid starting up class in […]
Choosing Love
Image by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash Writing inspired by January’s Monthly Prompt from Megan Devine & Refuge in Grief for Grieflings who have been through her 30-day Writing your Grief Programme https://refugeingrief.com/writing-your-grief/ “For decades, my parents have said they wouldn’t get new dogs or cats when the ones they had died. Their last dog died […]
If Only….
Photo our own – with our eldest child, Ben. I have many terrible dreams. Night-time dreams, I mean. My day-time dreams are much more enjoyable, pleasant, inspiring, life-giving. I am a light sleeper, which, I think, also means I dream a lot. Or I wake up a lot from my dreams, as I am having […]
The Memory Bank
It all adds up doesn’t it? I’ve had days where it’s one bad thing again and again. I couldn’t catch a break. Life seems so tough when I’m right in the middle of the storm. I used to dwell on the harder days way more then dwelling on the good ones. You know what I […]
Winter Doldrums
Mid-January. I can count on consistent cold for at least another couple of months. My rational mind knows better, but I sometimes wonder whether the sun permanently has vanished behind thick and impenetrable gray clouds, low, menacing, and, […]
2022 is the year of….Lovely Work
Image by Jen Theodore on Unsplash We are far enough into January now to no longer be seeing quite so many stories of New Year’s Resolutions. What a relief. I can better tolerate stories of New Year’s Intentions – which seem to be more flexible, more humane. Intentions seem to offer more malleability, more wiggle […]
“Go Get Yourself A Bigger Problem”
Photos by my friend Jane del Pozo Back in the early 1990s, I worked for a couple of years post-Masters, in a small consulting firm of organisational psychologists in Cambridge. One of my colleagues – let’s call her Terri – was a bullish, no-nonsense Aussie, who has stayed in my mind all these decades, despite […]
Filtering Out the Fiction
Moving from the apartment where I became widowed has had a lot of competing emotions. Taking down the photos that Clayton hung up and seeing just my dog Roan standing in our empty apartment hit me hard. Real life becomes more real in some pretty harsh, unexpected waves and ways. Worn out carpet where Clayton […]
One of the Best Things
Photos my own these past days So Christmas and New Year have been okay. Better than okay. Moments that were really hard, of course; but more moments that have been really enjoyable. Ben and Megan came back from the Netherlands where they study, and stayed largely at home while they were here. Medjool went back […]
A Flight of Stairs
Almost six years ago and three flights of stairs up, we thought our new apartment in this little beach down was part of Heaven. For 8 months I helped you walk up and down these stairs until up was to hard for the both of us. Four years after you, I stayed in our apartment. […]
Today I have lived 20,000 days
Picture by Debby Hudson on Unsplash I know, notice, or choose to find out, the weirdest things about dates and days. I love number patterns. I love that my birthday is 270367 and Mike’s is 270763. Same digits. A numerical dream. Or so I chose to believe. Just recently, we have seen a lovely date […]