(Above) A traditional cemetery celebration on Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This time of year reminds me of just how important magic is. While life holds it’s own magic, death certainly holds an even more inexplicable magic all it’s own. Not in the sense of tricks and jokes, but in the sense of wonder and possibility. Now, I know…
Widowed Emotions
He Was My Addiction
How did he pass away? It’s a question I have hated answering. Up until now I’ve avoided that question out of fear of being judged. I recently read an inspiring article by Elizabeth Ann titled “Dear Judgy Lady on Facebook”. It bought tears to my eyes and made me look at myself and think, where is my backbone! Elizabeth gave me the courage to…
Stepping out of the Vacuum
Hi all, I’m filling in for Kelley today since she is at Camp Widow Toronto. She’ll be back with us next week! Until then, I’m sitting down to write who-knows-what to you, on the fly. I suppose the first thing that comes to mind right now is community. It’s been on my mind all morning. Not only am I missing Camp Widow Toronto, and all the…
Day-to-Day
As has become more and more typical, I find myself sitting down to write, and not having a clear topic on where to focus. The fact of the matter is, though I miss Megan, her death and absence is not all-consuming. Far from it, actually. Trying to spin an anecdote about my day-to-day life into something about grief or loss is exhausting…
My Birthday Victory Lap
This past week was my birthday. I turned 34. It might be the first time in my life I don’t really seem to have any particular feeling about turning an age. Usually I have a feeling of either excitement or resentment towards a new age. When I hit 30, I was so gloriously ready to leave my 20’s behind because they were, with the exception of…
Working With Grief
This is my life now, living with grief is a daily battle. It never ends, we just try to adapt to life with grief. Last week I was filled with a new found strength. I used this strength to put more effort into my job and was proud that I felt as though I was finally escaping the fog. That was until I was pulled into a meeting at the end of what I…
It’s the 3 Dots at the end…
Of course you’ll always miss your husband….. It’s the but that you can read into those little dots at the end of that sentence that contain the crux of what the person is really saying. ….don’t hang onto the grief…. ….it’s your decision to be happy or not…. …..if you’re still struggling with grief, maybe you should go on…
Even Without Me
Four years, 3 months, and two days after you died, I walked under a blanket of oak and beech trees. The air was cool and crisp, the leaves still shining from a gentle rain… holding drips ransom until the wind blows them loose with a whisper. We were in the city, he and I, but all the world around us was quiet up on that wooded hill. As we…
Dew Drops and Sunshine
This week I have been filled with and unexpected strength, I have still cried almost every day but I feel strong within myself for the first time in a long time. I’ve struggled with insomnia since December. Generally waking two or three times a night. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t usually go to be till around 11 and with continuous…
Collective Grief
15 years ago today, as I type this, Mike and I were awakened sometime after 3 AM Hawaii time by a phone call. In those days it was still landlines, so Mike groggily stumbled into the living room to answer it, and came back and woke me, handing me the phone, and saying, it’s your mom, I think there was a hurricane or something. The house where…
The Springtime of my Heart
The crocus is a flower that blooms in early spring here in Ohio. So early in fact that it’s one of the first glimpses of spring you will see peeking through the colorless shell of winter. Year after year, these vibrant beauties bring with them the first moments of hope towards spring coming. Today as I am reflecting back, and as the seasons are…
Our First Father’s Day
For the past month it has been difficult to ignore the father’s day cards that existed on stands in shopping centres almost everywhere I looked. Mentally trying to prepare for the day “it’s just another day, no different from any other”. When the day arrived I woke with that mindset, it’s just another day. I called my dad to wish him…