I’m down in Texas this weekend. It’s my first visit in almost 6 months since moving to Ohio. Drew’s little sister is graduating… or actually, just did, yesterday. I arrived here on Thursday morning and immediately felt that beautiful rush of comfort of the familiar. The old, wide oak trees, the rolling hills, the warmth of the Texas heat… it…
Widowed Emotions
Motherless Day
My mother, daughter, and girlfriend have all lost their own mothers at a young age, all to different illnesses. Each of their moms had to stare their own mortality square in the eye, and hope for the best for their daughters. They did everything they could to love and protect their little ones in the time they had, but ultimately, they had no…
The Accidental Mother, Part 2
I have the ironic honor of always writing on Mother’s Day, being the Sunday writer here at Widow’s Voice. Ironic because it always forces me to evaluate my feelings about a holiday I have mostly chosen not to celebrate since my own mother died when I was young. I hate this day, or at least, I mostly always have. But this post isn’t about that.
Gratitude and Perspective
The “big day” was this past Friday, the court date for the preliminary hearing for my foreclosure mediation. And it was just a lot of build up for nothing. It got postponed until June 17. Some guy who was supposed to be there wasn’t and the judge wasn’t happy…ultimately I think it’s going to look good for me. My friend Sarah went…
On Living an Unconventional Life~
I have a difficult time defining my life to myself since Chuck died, never mind anyone else. Not that I need to explain it to anyone, but, holy shit, does it come up in conversation. Not just this widowhood, but my lifestyle. I full-time on the road, as many of you know. In the last year I’ve taken more time off the road than I ordinarily would…
A Letter from Before, and Beyond
The time has finally come to clean up the basement of my house. When I say that, I don’t mean that I need to go through and organize some of Megan’s things. I mean that the entire basement, full of god-knows-what from Megan, myself, and Shelby needs to be perused, bit by bit. When we moved to this house (for the second time, long story) 4…
One Risk at a Time
This was me, back in 2009. The week Drew and I began dating, we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. It was a pivotal experience for me… and changed my beliefs in myself and how I dealt with risk and fear in my life. I have always been a cautious person, but every so often, I discovered after this day, I am able to make some pretty big leaps.
What I Can’t Tell you~
I feel compelled, now that I’ve passed the 3 year mark of my widowhood (as of April 21), to write one of those numbered lists of what helped me get through to this mark… Really, honestly, though, I couldn’t tell you how I’ve gotten here. All I can tell you is that I look in the mirror at myself and ask how the FUCK have you done this? How…
Broken Hearts Club
For the past week, I have poured myself into the creation of my new grief workshop. It’s finally getting real now. Which is scary and exciting all at the same time. The fundraiser is over, and by the end, I raised $1700 to help with the creation of all of this. Amazingly, 95% of those donations were from widowed people. None of my close non-widow…
1000 days
Dear Dan, This week we reached another milestone, albeit not exactly a traditional one. On Tuesday, it had been 1000 days since I kissed you goodbye. The reason I know this is because I put a ‘countdown’ ap on my phone after you died, so I’d always know how many months, weeks or days since you’d been gone. Isn’t that a strange thing to want to…
Dreams Coming True
In my first post for this year I spoke about setting my goal for 2016. In this piece I wrote, “I’m sick of treading water, I want to start swimming again in 2016. I want to propel myself forward and feel like my life is moving ahead again. So this year I’ve chosen ‘growth’ as my mantra. It took me a while to settle on this word, because…
Swimming with Sharks
So my stepdaughter calls the other day – the one who lives here in Kona near me – and tells me she went out on a boat trip with a group of people and they decided to go pretty far out to see what interesting creatures they might find. When they are way out there they all get into the water. She says they did see two bottlenose dolphins, which is…