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…
Widowed Effect on Family/Friends
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…
Wish You Were Here, Uncle Dan
My usually quiet, peaceful and tidy sanctuary of a home has been turned in to a messy playground for two boisterous little boys this weekend… and I’ver never been happier to have my orderly life turned up-side-down. You see, Dan’s sister is visiting from interstate with her husband and two young boys, aged two and four, and it’s just been…
What People Think
A family friend recently asked my sister how I was doing, and then seemed surprised when she replied that I’m still very sad a lot of the time and cry often. It got me thinking, if I don’t regularly remind the world that I’m missing Dan and still grieving him, will they assume I’ve ‘finished’ or was past that ‘phase’? In the months after his death…
Just Pray
Okay. So I’m probably going to alienate some people or piss some people off with this post today, but you know what? The reason I’m writing it in the first place is because I feel alienated every single day, by the very same people who will be angry or upset by this post. Besides, my intention is not to upset anyone. My intention is, as always, to…
The 9-11 Effect
There is something I have noticed in relation to both 9-11 and Don’s death. I refer to it as “the 9-11 Effect.” Remember right after 9-11, how NYC and America, became a totally different place, and people changed overnight from bitter, hurried grumps who didn’t have a second to spare to patriotic, beautiful, generous, patient souls? Remember how in…