Usually I would write a blog post separate from my personal blog for Widows Voice. However this week has been a rough one, we all have them. Rather than write a totally new post I want to share a post I wrote earlier in the week that shows the dark side of grief. The side that most feel they need to hide. I want to tell you, it’s ok to not be ok!…
Widowed Emotions
My Happiness List
Over the weekend I attended John’s son’s swimming lesson. He jumped off the diving board for the first time. Every first brings with it pride for my children along with the inevitable thought, John is missing out or we are missing out on experiencing this first with him. Whichever way you look at it, it’s unfair that he is not here. I left…
Thanks Death, Now I Have To…
This image perfectly sums up my post for today. There are times in our life when our path to somewhere ends, and from that moment on, we have to begin making decisions for another journey. We have to decide to stay on the shore, at the end of that life, or wade out into the unknown and swim toward some unknown future, trusting we will be able to…
Home Without Him
Moving went as smoothly as possible, I culled a lot of old belongings like toys, baby clothes and little knickknacks. The new apartment is fresh and has a positive ambiance about it. My positive mindset however took its time to catch up. I was undecided on whether or not I would hang John’s clothes in the wardrobe of the new house. As I happily…
Death and Friendships (not)
The fact that a decades old friendship is dead in the water and it doesn’t bother me says to me that it’s been floating belly up for some time, and I just never really noticed. Friendships die for various reasons; it can be something small that suddenly becomes a catalyst, or it can be something big and you just can’t ignore it. I guess what…
Scheduled Grief
I sat down last night to begin my writing for this week, and I had nothing. No anecdotes, no significant events, not even any special lessons I learned this past week as it pertains to grief or mourning. I stared at the screen for hours, adding a few paragraphs, reading over them, then deleting them. Finally, as midnight drew near, I closed my…
Parenting and Grieving, How the Hell?
My sister came to visit last weekend, and we went out for a girls night to see that movie Bad Moms. It’s the first time in my life I could relate to such a movie… and to parts of my sister’s life, having raised three children herself. The movie was hilarious, we laughed so hard, and it felt so good to finally just have some girl time…
Home Is Where The Heart Is
I sat in the car alone, across the street from the vacant house we once called home. The house was the only one in the street without lights on. I hoped none of the neighbours would notice me parked and no one did. I sat in silence reminiscing on sweet memories of us taking evening walks under the stars. I imagined we were teenagers again, lying on…
I Don’t Want it Today.
I hit a wall yesterday. Majorly. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve gotten serious anxiety to the point that I could barely hold it together. In fact, the last time I can remember having this feeling was that rainy night – which I wrote about here – when Mike and I drove the moving truck across the Texas state line on our way to…
How Much Time?
I’m sitting here thinking about the fact that one of our writers here at Widow’s Voice, Rebecca, has decided to make that tough choice to leave our blog. Since I’ve been writing here, starting in May 2014, I’ve seen a few come and go, and part of me wonders how long I will be here. At what point do we feel it’s the right time to leave? Of course,…
One Way Rider
It’s incredible what a song can do. I was driving home tonight, emotions already welling up in me. Moving in with Mike is probably one of the most bittersweet things to happen in my life since Drew died. And I hate that. I was over at my place picking up a few things, walking around outside for a moment in the quiet of the evening, and a great…
My Goodbye Post
I found Soaring Spirits the day after my husband died from depression. I googled the term ‘suicide widow’ – reeling from shock that these strange words were now something I needed to make sense of. One of the links that I clicked contained the heart-felt words from a young widow named Melinda who had also lost her darling husband Sean to…