I heard our wedding song this week. It was only the second time I’ve heard it in the almost two and half years since Tony died. I usually just ask Alexa to play music and let her pick the genre. Well, this particular evening she chose 90’s country instead of something like P!nk. Tony liked […]
Widowed by Suicide
Butterfly Fly Away
Last week I attended what I thought was my first funeral since Erik’s funeral. As I was driving up this cemetery hill something looked all too familiar. Then the flashback came. My cousin and I had driven up a similar hill for another funeral just a little over a month after Erik’s passing. I couldn’t […]
Last Parent Standing
I am not a single parent. I am a solo parent. It was only a few months after Erik’s passing that I was out of town. Everything during this time was still painful. Waking up, breathing, pretending to smile, existing – it was all so painful. I was on my way to the airport to […]
Camping Without Him
This weekend the kids and I embarked on another first without Tony. Two years and three months after his passing I accepted an invitation to go on a camping float trip. Tony loved the outdoors and for him all the prep work to camp was worth the effort. I went along for the ride because […]
And the story changed forever…
Author’s Note: Thank you Emma, for the introduction and warm sentiments. I will continue to carry on the Girl Tuesday role for those that are walking this similar path. I look forward to keeping up with your journey and following you at http://www.widowingemptynests.com. Thank you for sharing your story and love with us, you will […]
Camp Widow Squad
Today I traveled home from my third trip to Camp Widow, San Diego. It is so hard to put into words how special this weekend is for me. For me, there is immense comfort in finding other widow(er)s who also lost their husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/person to suicide. Our loss is traumatic in a way that can be […]
Prepping For Camp Widow
In two days and 18 hours I will board a plane headed for Camp Widow San Diego! This will be my third camp. I’m so excited to go back and reconnect with my mighty squad of widows. I’m also looking forward to sleeping alone in a hotel room with no small humans demanding snacks. But […]
Another Trauma Reminder
CW/TW: This post contains a discussion of suicide. I am currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Georgia State University, where I also received my undergraduate and master’s degrees. It is where Boris and I attended college together, and where he was attending for his master’s when he died. GSU holds a special place in […]
Undercurrent of Fear
Fear isn’t always something we always talk about with widowhood. Losing Tony to suicide has put an undercurrent of fear beneath all of us who held him dear. This isn’t to say that we live our lives in constant fear, but it creeps out faster for us. When I call my mom at a weird […]
Texts.
Sometimes I do what I call “pressing the bruise” and look at something or do something that I know will trigger my grief or feel sad. This week, I did one of those things and I read through saved text messages with Boris. And yeah, it did hurt. Especially the messages where I was angry […]
Social Media Memories
I have a love hate relationship with the memories section of Facebook. I love looking back at pictures of the kids when they were little. Round faces, dimpled hands, and innocence. I hate that I don’t have more pictures of Tony with the kids, or just his legs made the shot. Seeing a photo of […]
Time Travel
Fellow widow (and author, podcaster, etc.) Nora McInerny asked on her Instagram story this week, “if you could time travel back to when your person was alive, what would you do?” Of course, this question had me thinking all day about it, trying to come up with the best answer. When your person dies by […]