I’ll be very blunt here. Christina Rasmussen, the visionary of Second Firsts, continues to help save my sanity by holding out hope. Her story helps me know that I just might get through this devastating grief brought into my soul by my beloved husband’s death. I personally don’t feel hope but I see the life she’s built after her husband’s…
Widowed by Illness
Homeward Run
I’ll keep on the theme Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation has run on their facebook page for International Widows Day – what I’ve achieved since Ian died. Well, working on achieving. One of the big changes I made was to go back to school. I knew my job would end about 12 months after Ian died, and I opted to work towards a change in…
Hello Year Three
I’m struggling writing this week. I know the general gist of what I want to say, but some of it keeps seeming harsh, uncaring, like I’m an insensitive bitch. Because it’s about the relief and positivity I’ve figured out I find in Ian’s death anniversary. This past weekend was the second anniversary of Ian’s passing. And although it may sound…
No Offense Meant~Bless Your Heart
FWG. A term I made up myself and one that may or may not be offensive to people. Words are funny, aren’t they? My mom used to say that people are the ones who give power to words and I believe the same goes for those who hear the words. They receive it according to how they define the word. When people ask me what FWG means, I generally ask…
Plot Point
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…
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. …