One of the things I’ve maintained since Ian died is a theatre subscription with a couple of friends. It gives me an opportunity to flex the grey-matter and escape to other worlds. Over the weekend I went to a show I’d been looking forward too in terms of performer and composer. It was a short, caberet style show and was a fantastic showcase for…
Widowed by Illness
It Starts Soon
I watched a documentary last night about Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Pretty heavy watching, you might think, and you’d be right for so many reasons. My husband and I shared a love for American history and traveled to so many National Parks over the 4 years we traveled as Happily Homeless. Little Bighorn in Montana was a powerful…
June
I’ve been trying to delay the onset of June. For example, I spent a couple of weeks writing appointments in the wrong week of May; a couple of weeks early. But the calendar has flipped, and it’s my month of anniversaries. June 4, marks Ian and I’s third wedding anniversary. The 11th will be 5 years since we first met. The 14th is his…
It’s Only Love. Or Grief. Or Love.
I’m near the end of the first month in the second year since my husband Chuck died. The nights and the days blend one into the other. When people ask me how I’m doing, I ask them in return if they want to hear the polite answer or the real answer. That’s pretty polite of me to ask that of them, isn’t it? I’ve run out of words to describe how…
Routnine. Junior Edition
I’ve written before about how my personal routines went out the window after Ian died. John was only 13 months when Ian got sick, and 16 months when he died. Getting him into a bedtime routine, let alone to going down at a regular time just never got re-established after the initial “everything gone haywire” period. We both developed bad…
This Odyssey of Love
I’m down to my last month here in Phoenix, staying with our oldest son. On June 21 my daughter and I will hitch up my PinkMagic rig and head north and then west on our Nothin’ But Love cross-country tour. We could head directly west and then north along the California coastline. We could, but we won’t. Quite simply, I can’t. If we head…
Raining, pouring
It’s been a crazy week. I guess I am just in one of those general bad periods that just happen in life from time to time. I have uni deadlines and assessments this week, I got sick Friday so I lost a study day, then a nasty nasty so and so of a virus attacked my computer rendering it to the status of a boat anchor (and not a very good one…
Grief Rising. But Love, Too
Tomorrow my daughter Rachael-Grace and I leave on our 6 month Nothin’ But Love tour. It will be quite an experience for both of us, filled with every emotion of the alphabet as we honor and remember my husband/her dad, meet people along the way and hear their stories, offer workshops to women around the country and, well, who knows what else. …
That Which Is Not Here~
We spend our lives with an awareness of our physical bodies. We dress our bodies, we move our bodies. Our hands hold other’s hands. Our arms hug. Our lips meet in exquisite kisses. Our lips smile and laugh. Our eyes sparkle as we gaze upon life and our loves. Our feet dance, in rhythm or not. Physical presence is a big deal. It was very much a big…
Questions?
Where is…?Who put that there…?When…?Why is……the bottle of brown sauce in the crockery cupboard?Did I put it there… or did John? I don’t remember doing that… but I don’t remember seeing John in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner, either. It must have been me that put the sauce in there, but have no recollection what so ever…
Year Three Fear
I’m heading into the run of second anniversaries that begin in February and run for about 4 months – his surgery; the complications hitting and the roller-coaster of his illness; him dying. Something I’m acutely aware of. In my journey, the big anniversary for me is the March “complications hitting” anniversary. That’s the day from which…
Routine
Ian used to call me Sheldon, as in Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. In order to keep up with the housework and household management, I followed a routine through a website. And it worked pretty well for me for years and years. To the point I’d get antsy if it wasn’t followed. Heck, I got antsy if he mopped the house from the back door to…