On Tuesday, I awoke around 1:00am. Turning on my laptop, I knew what I was looking for; the Facebook Post I’d written on that day four years earlier sharing the sad and unwanted news with so many that Rich had lost his three-week long fight to keep on living. There are now over 500 comments […]
Widowed Emotions
A promise to myself
is worth keeping A valuable promise for widowed people to make is to prioritize our own self-care and self-worth by committing to our well-being and growth. What does “I’ll take care of you” mean when we say it to ourselves? We might begin by prioritizing self-care and dare to discover what “self-worth” means […]
Pondering Hope
Then and Now In the early days of losing my husband of 52 years, I was in shock. A fog. It lasted a full year and as time moved on, I saw myself clinging to optimism. I’m a hopeless optimist and the problem in that is that sometimes I avoid feeling my feelings in the […]
BBQ Community
Living in the Midwest, BBQ is a food group and a hobby. I’ve shared before that Tony loved to smoke and had a BBQ team. He also shared that love with others and built a community of competitors. One of the people he drew into that world was his boss. A few weeks ago, his […]
Reminders of Intertwined Lives
Fire season in California means updating the emergency backpack in the car. Among the various obvious items I have in it, I also have items for my “elderly” parents – particularly for my Mom’s health needs. We live 8 blocks away from each other, and the times we have had to evacuate, we evacuate together. […]
Quality Time
The period between September 28th and the 28th of October will forever be a time of reflection and recollection. Even with so many changes and forward movement, I’d not be honest if I said that the memories of past drastic events didnt affect my days. Yes, we do move forward (NOT on), but that […]
What is a Bad*ss Widowed Person Anyway?
“Badass” (often stylized with an asterisk, like “bad*ss”) is an informal term referring to someone, typically a woman in recent contexts, who is tough, formidable, and indomitable, often in the face of adversity or to challenge norms. (AI Dictionary) What qualifies a widowed person as a bad*ss? A Bad*ss Widowed Person discerns when […]
Ready to Let Go of Tangible Reflections of their Love
Lynn was big on having (over the counter) meds on hand – allergy, flu, tummy ache, headache, etc. She had them organized in plastic bags that she carefully labeled with what they were for. I have struggled all these years with clutter cleaning, getting-rid-of, holding onto things until I am ready to let them go, […]
Navigating the “Tail” of the Timeline
On Thursday, October 9, Quint, my quirky Malti-poo, turned four years old. Quint has played an integral role in my movement, and voyage, forward after the passing of my husband, Rich. On October 8, 2021, I brought Rich to the local ER after a several days of of him not feeling well after we’d returned […]
When Art Is a Poor Imitation of Life
The other night, I stayed up later than usual to watch the multiple Oscar-nominated film, “Terms of Endearment.” It’s a film based on Larry McMurtry’s book, with one significant difference: The film adds a major character — the middle-aged, former astronaut Garrett Breedlove (played to perfection by Jack Nicholson, who won the Oscar for Best […]
After the Major Transition of Loss
Life Brings Other Transitions I joined the Widow’s Voice team about two months into my loss. Each writer (one for each day of the week) writes about whatever is relevant in their life that week. For about two months now, I have been in a state of transition. Preparing my home for a tenant involved […]
Magical Powers
Today I opened an assignment one of my kids participated in for school. The question posed to these middle schoolers was: If you had to choose one magic power for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why would you choose this power? This assignment was completed on a discussion board of sorts, […]