“Happy Mother’s Day!” the waiter says to me, followed by saying that he isn’t sure who is or isn’t a mom so he just says it to all the women coming in to eat lunch at the restaurant today. I laugh at his over-kindness, and say thank you. But then, as he walks away… the feeling sinks in. Now, normally I’m very good at keeping the whole children…
Widowed Emotions
“I’m Okay”
“Don’t lie” shouted my step-dad from the other side of the room. This exchange happened while my Mum was in ICU in April 2008. My dad called to check up, and we had our auto-pilot introductory exchange. My step-dad called it for what it was. My step-dad also said during this time, “Never get married. Loosing a spouse sucks”. Well…
Spoons
Why do I keep expecting to be someone who hasn’t been through what I have? Why do I have these ridiculous expectations? Why do I feel less than because I’m so changed? Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be disabled by this tragedy, but I am anyway. I try not to use it as an excuse for my failures, but sometimes I forget that I am not as I…
The Dream & The Death
Today is a very big day. In just a few hours, I will be loading up nine of my large framed photos and delivering them safely to the local hospital for my first solo art exhibition. It is a lifelong dream come true. And mostly, it has been incredible. I told my counselor the other day that it feels like a dream… that it feels like I got dropped…
Secret Universe
The other day, I was watching the Yankee game, and the Yankees were playing at home, against the Seattle Mariners. Now, if you know anything at all about baseball or the Yankees, you might know that Robinson Cano left the Yankees at the end of last season, and signed on with the Mariners. It is complicated and has to do with contracts and…
The Person Underneath
In the beginning, I couldn’t imagine talking about anything else. Did you hear? My husband died. I’m a widow. You have something else to talk about? Why? Is there anything else in the entire world that matters as much as this fact? Talking about anything else felt like forcing my brain to think around the sound of a tornado tearing through…
Sick of It
I need to whine. Actually, scratch that. I’m not a whiner. I need to bitch.I am not in love with my life right now. Right this minute. This “after” life that was handed to me in grenade form, exploding in my hands seconds upon it’s rude entrance. Who the hell asked for this life – this life where I no longer have a husband? Where we don’t get to…
Time. And love.
Time means nothing and it means everything since my husband died. My heart beats its’ rhythm. It plods and it races and jumps and bumps and shatters and breaks and leaps and is subtle and loud. All at the same time sometimes.In one month it will be one year since he died.I turned 56 two months after he died. When people ask me I always…
Creating
There are times when I start to write a post or create a new art project and I get stuck. Suddenly, every idea I have and every mark I make or word I type is wrong. Wrong, stupid, vapid, empty, annoying, pandering, arrogant, contrived. I annoy myself. I disgustmyself. I decide that I will not be able to write anything helpful. I will not be able…
Weighing the Days
Yesterday was a hard day. Exactly a week until Drew’s birthday, perhaps I don’t remember how hard it was last year… but I could swear it’s hitting me harder this year. My body seems so much more aware of the lack of his body, but also just the feeling of him in the space is far more distant now. I downplayed that first sentence… it was a…
Listen
“Listen- life is really going on, right now, around us. Do you see it? Sometimes I lose it, but if I sit still and listen, it comes back, and then I think, how funny, this is what being alive is.” -Robin MorganI need to start this blog post with apologizing.In the 5 years of being a Widow’s Voice writer, I’ve recently been failing at my Saturday…
The Second Thing
A fellow widowed friend of mine recently brought my attention to this wonderful quote, said by the character Reddington, from the TV show The Blacklist. The quote is this:”There is nothing that can take the pain away, but eventually you will find a way to live with it. There will be nightmares, and everyday when you wake up, it will be the first…