As of today, my husband has been dead for 500 days. That just sounds so utterly ridiculous to me. 500 days. It might as well be an eternity. During those first few weeks, each day felt like a marathon. It was the greatest challenge to make it through every. single. day. I’d lay in bed at night with a heart heavy and a broken spirit,…
Widowed Emotions
Silence and Noise
Have you ever taken a few minutes or hours or days, to look completely outside your own life and how your loss affects it, and instead look into the world at large? If you have, like I have, you might find yourself staring into a great, big, never-ending, cavernous hole. Being where I currently am inside this grief tsunami, (3 years and 4…
This Dark Night of the Soul
This particular blog is one I don’t plan on editing or changing in any way. It’s completely raw writing from the darkness of this night that I’m in. I came in off the road not quite a week ago, right before Thanksgiving. My PinkMagic trailer is parked outside my son’s house here in Arizona. He recently moved in with his girlfriend, soon to be…
A Thankful, Angry Heart
It is the week of Thanksgiving, and all around me there is the message to be grateful, to be thankful for what I have, and to count my blessings. I am thankful for many things—my brothers and their families, who made sure I got to visit them, my cousins and aunts and uncle, who made special efforts to see me while I am here, my son and his…
The Grief Critic
In the 3 years and 4 months so far of this death tsunami I’m living since losing my husband, there is something I have learned about other people. Sometimes they suck. A lot. When it comes to living with the death of your partner or spouse, I have found that there are two kinds of people I deal with: the supporter, and the critic. Technically,…
Surviving Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving Mike and I spent together in 1999, we went out for Indian food. We thought it would be a lark to be totally untraditional, and we did that together for a few years until we moved to Hawaii. Once we got here we started hosting the holiday ourselves with various groups of family and friends over the years. I have a lot of fond…
Read Patiently. There is an Actual Point
It’s turned out, for me, to be all about the hair. I didn’t intend it to play out like this; it just has. Shortly after Chuck died, I cut my hair off to the scalp. Short, short, short. First scissors then a razor. It was done in a violent manner, in a way that I hoped would allow me to release some of the devastating pain of his forever…
Still, Life
week has been a whirlwind for me. I met a fellow artist who, upon seeing my photographic series on grief, asked to write this feature about it for a creative blog he writes for. That one blog post at this point has led to around 6 other blogs contacting me to share my story and the project… which has resulted in hundreds of people sharing the…
The Road Well Traveled
My daughter and I are nearing the end of our 6 month road adventure. It will be the end of this particular segment of my Odyssey of Love. But it doesn’t end in Arizona when I drop her off. I’m going to take a one month break off the road, visit with my son and grand-daughter, meet my son’s girlfriend and her daughter (I’m really looking…
Left Behind
Two years ago, on November 17th, my husband and I were getting married. It was a chilly autumn day, and the rain paused long enough for us to gather at the registry office in New Mills for our simple, beautiful ceremony. Later, we brought close friends and family to our local pub, The Beehive, for a reception and delicious dinner. No one from…
That Which Doesn’t Kill Me
Yesterday was one of those days in this after life that was both incredible and heartbreaking all at once. Earlier this year, I started going to the gym and took up Crossfit to try and get into shape. I hadn’t done anything for over a year since he died and was really out of shape. Not to mention I’ve never really been athletic my entire adult…
Wish You Were Here, Uncle Dan
My usually quiet, peaceful and tidy sanctuary of a home has been turned in to a messy playground for two boisterous little boys this weekend… and I’ver never been happier to have my orderly life turned up-side-down. You see, Dan’s sister is visiting from interstate with her husband and two young boys, aged two and four, and it’s just been…