What kind of support do widowed people need? Many people are familiar with the five stages of grief, but mourning a loved one rarely happens in a clear or predictable manner. You might cycle repeatedly through different emotions, or you may feel everything at once. Every widow or widower processes grief in their own way […]
Widowed Emotions
Time After Time After Time After Time
Photos my own This is – and will continue to be – a weekend full of experiments. A lot of my life is still versions of experimentation, if not in the ways it was immediately post-loss(es) when even just venturing out of the front door and heading to the shops felt like an experiment. This […]
Another One Down
Last week I was just feeling off. I didn’t go to my workout class once. All I wanted to do was eat chocolate, french fries, and curl up to escape into the fantasy saga I’m reading. It took me until Wednesday to realize it was probably in part because I was approaching our third Father’s […]
Press “send” for instant panic
Main image by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash Last Sunday, after I had arrived in Milos in the early morning but still too late to join the other intrepid swimmers for all day open-water swimming, I just pootled around. It was a blissfully leisurely day. I enjoyed a second breakfast, unpacked my belongings, had two short […]
Undercurrent of Fear
Fear isn’t always something we always talk about with widowhood. Losing Tony to suicide has put an undercurrent of fear beneath all of us who held him dear. This isn’t to say that we live our lives in constant fear, but it creeps out faster for us. When I call my mom at a weird […]
Urning Places in Our Hearts
Tomorrow my mother and I will travel to Upstate New York where my father’s cremains will be interred at the Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery during a private service next week. My late husband Rich’s cremains rest in Jacksonville National Cemetery (FL), a beautiful peaceful spot. It was a place initially intended […]
Texts.
Sometimes I do what I call “pressing the bruise” and look at something or do something that I know will trigger my grief or feel sad. This week, I did one of those things and I read through saved text messages with Boris. And yeah, it did hurt. Especially the messages where I was angry […]
Παρακαλώ και ευχαριστώ
Main image by Sergio Garcia on Unsplash Back in the very early 1980s – or perhaps it was even the very late 1970s – I am not entirely sure… my mum started to learn Greek. I don’t know why she started, (nor why she eventually stopped), but she engaged a private teacher who showed up […]
Social Media Memories
I have a love hate relationship with the memories section of Facebook. I love looking back at pictures of the kids when they were little. Round faces, dimpled hands, and innocence. I hate that I don’t have more pictures of Tony with the kids, or just his legs made the shot. Seeing a photo of […]
And a Little Dog Shall Lead Me
As an author who’s built a Writer’s Platform on an Observance known as National Dog Week, I’ve tried to make it my business to keep up with the myriad of holidays and observances established just to honor the pets and animals that enhance our lives. I’ve written previously about how pets are especially helpful and […]
Healing Support Tools: The Labyrinth
Labyrinths represent a journey or path to our own center and back again. The labyrinth serves as a metaphor for life’s journey. —Healing Consciousness Foundation What is a labyrinth? There are many definitions for the word “labyrinth”. One simple way to explain it is “a series of circuitous paths that lead to the center and […]
“The relationship I always wanted….”
Photo of my parents in 1961 in Córdoba, Spain – from their archives Medjool and I have just had a lovely 10 day “working break”, based mostly at my parents’ house in Céret in the Pyrénées Orientales, just inside France on the Franco-Spanish border. Now into their 80s, I try to get down to spend […]