I am sitting in my hotel room in Toronto writing… trying to find the best and most concise way to describe all that has happened in the past seven days of my life. I say “most concise” because I’ve got a bag to pack, and many wonderful widow friends to still say farewells to before leaving Camp Widow Toronto. In a nutshell, the past week has…
Widowed Effect on Family/Friends
A New Addition
Just a few days ago, Sarah arrived here in Ohio to visit for the first time. This is something we have both been waiting months for. As our relationship grew over the phone and Skype, the discussion arose on when she would finally meet Shelby, my parents, and Megan’s parents. When we first discussed, we agreed that now, in September, she…
Widows Walk
I am fortunate to have many beautiful family and friends in my life. Today, though, I feel moved to express just how important all my widowed friends are to me. I know I would not be able to walk through my own life now without them. The day Mike died, as we were making all those terrible phone calls, and just after that word “widow” had…
Hey Bud
I am in a very unique situation, not only being a widower, but in love with a widow. The silver lining to this is that it allows me to see things from two perspectives. I’ve decided that since Sarah hasn’t yet travelled to my home, I would write this week from the perspective of dating a widow. Things like meeting in-laws, friends, and…
The Fields of Tomorrow
New love and all the complicated, bizarre beauty of it has become the theme of late in my life and in my writing. A woman who read my blog post last week about Mike coming to visit and meet my in-laws for the first time, sent me a note about just this. Only her story is from another perspective. With her permission, I am sharing a bit of her story…
Bringing New Love Home
I have gone through a myriad of emotions the past few days. Mike is down this weekend visiting me from Ohio… it is the first time he is meeting my family and a lot of my closest friends. It’s one of those big and bittersweet and totally surreal steps forward. Even more so because he is coming for a special event – an annual camping trip that…
My Other Soul Mate
I’ve spent the past week at a holistic healing and yoga retreat in Bali, Indonesia and planned to tell you all about it today. It was an incredible week. I’m still processing everything that happened and trying to work out how to put it in to words. On top of that, my 6-hour flight home landed in Brisbane at 4:45am this morning so I…
Colors of Love
I’m writing this the night before celebrating my third anniversary without Drew. By the time you read it, I will likely be somewhere in the middle of the day itself. I don’t have to tell any of you how surreal it feels to be here – celebrating our three years together after three years without him. It has a different kind of sadness…
A Day to Celebrate Love
When my husband died, I was still in the process of integrating in to his ‘before life’ and forming connections with his friends. We lived in Brisbane and he was from Sydney, so most of his close friends weren’t local and we therefore didn’t get to hang out with them regularly. I knew they were wonderful people though, lots of fun, loyal…
Profile Picture
This week someone said that it was time to change my Facebook profile picture. My profile picture is the one above of Ian and I from our wedding, the banner picture is our 2011 Christmas Card photo.Changing my profile picture is not something I did that often anyway. I’m a bit ‘set and forget’ that way, but I was taken aback at the blunt…
Those Who Don’t Know Grief
As I write this we’re full swing into the holidays and I’ve survived Christmas Day, Boxing Day and am about to head to my parent’s house for a large lunch celebration with 20 or so members of extended family. I’m absolutely exhausted, but hanging in there. I’ve heard many widowed people say that the second year can be harder than the first,…
Secluded Paths
Maggie kept the beat in our relationship when it came to social engagements. She injected me into a lively social world that held me captive to weekends packed with activities, most of which were not optional. Now, without her overwhelming influence, I find myself woefully disengaged with what I think most people would consider normal life. We had…