I made my first modest contributions to this site on February 4, 2021. As I look back on this first year’s output, I am surprised to see that I have now filed more than 40 reports concerning my personal journey as a widower, and there is still one week left to go before we finally […]
Widowed Community
Flowering Unapologetically
Image on Unsplash by Roksolana Zasiadko I am a subscriber to Megan Devine’s weekly and monthly writing prompts. I always read them, even if I don’t often write into them. But this week I want to write into one of the prompts she sent out recently. Even if it made more sense to me last […]
Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Widows
Images from the Soaring Spirits end of year card 2021 I got my first Christmas card two days ago. Not quite in November, but almost. It stunned me in myriad ways. Firstly, I am staggered I even receive Christmas cards anymore. I don’t send any. I used to, in the life before, but I don’t […]
Grief of Tsunamic Proportions
Image by David Cleverley on Unsplash I don’t know how to begin this piece. I don’t know what will be in the middle. And I don’t know how it will end. In truth, I usually don’t know the middle or end of a piece before I start writing. This will horrify any good teacher of […]
Mourning and Evening Glories
Main image by Erda Estremera on Unsplash A couple of weeks ago, on 3rd November, I felt moved to celebrate a different kind of anniversary. The three-year anniversary of my widbud group, the “Mourning Glories”, comprised of Charlotte, Gordon, Michelle, Pamela and me. We met in early November 2018 in Toronto at “Camp Widow”, organised […]
Widow Appreciation Post.
Until Boris died I did not realize how much it means for someone to be able to say, “me, too”. In the weeks and months following his death, I craved stories and relationships with people who had lost their person or lost someone they love to suicide. I wanted to only watch movies, read books, […]
Confessions
Hi Babe, It’s been 166 days, 22 hours, 32 minutes and 16 seconds since you left. The clock ticks on as I write, rendering the time estimate incorrect seconds after I type it. Confession seems warranted since I sometimes cannot remember if I’ve showered— and apparently I made a tribute tile for you but I […]
Community and Accountability
Main image by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash When I took up swimming again for the first time, when I was about 23, it was after an approximatively 10-year hiatus. Until the age of 13, swimming (in a pool) was one of the three main sports I did, along with ice-skating and orienteering. I enjoyed all […]
9/11 Memories, Appreciation and Honouring
Written on 11 September 2021 Main image by Jesper Blijdestein on Unsplash 9/11. Nine-Eleven trips off the tongue. It means September 11th 2001. Even to Brits, who would otherwise say 11th of September (and write 11/9), there’s no misunderstanding what 9/11 means. Anyone over a certain again remembers what they were doing on 11th September […]
Just how do we ever do this?
Image by Sarah Treanor on www.streanor.com This is my 104th piece of writing for Soaring Spirits International, which means I have been writing here for exactly 2 years. A piece a week. And sometimes I write more frequently on my own personal blogsite. I had been widowed for over two years, and had lost my […]
The Benefit of Bereavement
I’ve always thought through life on a grand scale – The excitement of positive possibilities. How magical it would be to have an amazing job, a beautiful home and grow old with a true love. I guess the problem with being a big dreamer, now that Clayton has passed away, is that with big dreams […]
Fly the Coop
There remains a lot going on in my life as I transition from my house of fourteen years to my new home. I have been between homes since the end of April; and though I am unsettled, I feel fairly calm. My new life is starting to take shape and this is exciting. It has been 4.7 years since I have really felt any type of warm anticipation about anything substantial. The feeling of hopeful anticipation about my future has been foreign to me in grief. Hope feels like the feels from another life I used to live. But, recently, hope reigns supreme for me. I guess this is what thawing from grief feels like. Slowly, I have worked to come back to life and I am more than ready to reap the benefits of my hard work.