I’m a mess lately. Around the start of this past holiday season, I began regressing to a point where I am again a cynical, grumpy, and in general, angry person. It has nothing to do with Sarah, Shelby, work, or even the holidays, really. It truly does have everything to do with the fact that Megan is no longer here. It’s not her death,…
Widowed Emotions
Building New Wings Ain’t Easy
For the first few years after Drew died, I lived in between lives. Back then, I remember distinctly feeling that way. Many of the photographs I took spoke to this. I wasn’t in my old life, nor was I in what I would define as a new life. I recall wondering what it would be like to one day live in a new life, instead of the in-between. Back then, I…
Wanting Love
I feel like I feel too much and think too much when really I shouldn’t overthink the concept at all. Just flow with life and the new beginnings it may bring. Enjoy it for all that it is and could be. Instead though, I feel guilty and scared. Scared that if I allow myself to love again, that love will be taken away. Guilty that I have thoughts of…
Needing the Deads’ Voice
Just two weeks ago, I wrote of a friend that was, at the time, fighting for her life in the ICU, hoping for a lung transplant. She was on death’s door, and no one could guess if she would make it another week, waiting for a donor. I am happy to say, that, as of yesterday, she received her transplant. A call came in late in the night on…
The Journey of a Life
There are days that make you look at the places you are arriving more than the ones you are leaving behind. Mike and I spent most of the afternoon yesterday out hiking. It was the first warm, sunny day we’ve had in ages in Ohio… and it put me in an especially grateful mood just to be existing and feeling the sunshine. We went to a big…
Bleeding Out the Pain
Last week I shared about feeling like some new layers of my grief are beginning to thaw as we shifted the calendar into what is my 5th year on this journey. I was pretty teary the week before, but it wasn’t until this past week that the breakdown came. Quite honestly, I’m glad for it. It was such a release. I don’t even know why it came when…
A Choiceless Event
I was sitting on the couch at my parents’ house in Virginia this week thinking about Mike. Just wondering how things would be different for me now were he still alive. Imagining him sitting next to me, trying to recapture the feeling of being in the presence of his energy. So much changes for us in widowhood. Surely the hardest is losing that…
Live New Today
Here we are. A new year. I woke up feeling weird about that. I think mostly I am annoyed. Annoyed by all the expectation that society holds for everyone to have this wonderful sense of hope for what’s to come on this day. Annoyed that every widowed person out there has to deal with the weight of that expectation as they manage to crawl across…
Another New Year
I can hear the fire works from last years New Years Eve celebrations. They go off with a bang. Thoughts racing of families watching them with smiles and couples sharing kisses that would seal there love for the year ahead. Last NYE I sat alone on my bedroom floor, with photos sprawled in front of me. A pen in hand, writing letters to John…
Humbug
Without a second thought, I stepped right into the holidays, as I’ve done for all but one year in the last 15 (the year Megan died was a little different). Just after Thanksgiving, we got our Christmas tree, put up lights on the house, decorated indoors, and as a first, we set up my old model train on the dining table, complete with snow,…
The People Who Stay
It is known to be a common sorrow amongst widowed people that so many of our friends from our “before” lives disappear after the death of our partners. Nearly four years later, I have a deeper understanding of this. Initially, this additional pain is so hurtful that we bear ill will, and I will say, rightly so. If everyone knew what it felt like to…
Stumbling Greatly
I recently heard an interview with Pema Chodron, a well-known Buddhist nun and author of the book When Things Fall Apart. This woman is chock-full of wisdom. And she got my mind turning about something this morning. In the interview, she talks about a graduation speech she gave recently, telling those brave young folks about to embark into the…