Photo of Paula & Julia by a school friend I wake up to a firm ray of sunlight bursting through my dormitory window on July 2nd, 2019. I can’t wait to finally see my family after what feels like years. Suddenly, an inexplicable feeling of heaviness fills my chest, making it hard to get out […]
Widowed Emotions
Recognized
When something tragic happens, everyone seems to know about it. You expect your core and extended people to know your story. I often forget how far-reaching bad news can be. How, in the age of social media and the internet it doesn’t take long for news to spread. It spreads far beyond what we even […]
What does hope look like for me now?
Image by precious widbud Charlotte MacNaughton – Yellowknife, Canada’s Northwest Territories (Jan 2023) Way back when, back in my life before, and soon after I had started up my business, Kaleidoscope Development, I wrote a blogpost on “Hope”. It was 21st April 2014. I actually called it, “Hope – Part One”, and a week later, […]
Cheering On Our Team
Yesterday was a big day for my city. In two weeks, my beloved Chiefs are headed back to the biggest football game. Like the week before, I gathered with my neighborhood crew to watch the game. If you didn’t watch, the game was a nailbiter. In the end, our team pulled through and across town […]
Getting Back
One of the biggest challenges of adjusting to life as a widow is trying to hold on to the memory of the life you had as part of a long-time couple while trying to remember the “Me” before “We”. In my case, recalling the latter is tied closely to the former. Last week I started […]
Inspiration from
The Widow Clicquot Who was 4 and a half feet tall with light colored hair and grey eyes and stormed the champagne industry during the French Revolution? That’s right! Barbe-Nicole: The Lady Herself Barbe-Nicole was widowed in 1805, at the age of 23. Women of that time were not allowed to run a business, but […]
Violent Dreams to Usher In the Year of the Rabbit
Image by Gary Bendig on Unsplash I have woken late this morning – almost 9 am – very late for me. But I have been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few hours – since before 6 am. I no longer remember what dream woke me before 6, but it was a […]
Greek Tragedy
Losing Tony hasn’t really made me question who I am as a person, but it has made me question how I should spend my time. As a couple, we each participated in activities that the other person wouldn’t sign up for alone. I’ve been to NASCAR races, BBQ contests, and attempted to fish. None of […]
Mapping Grief:
A Man Called Otto. We first meet Otto six months after his wife’s death. With no apparent family, and having cut ties with those he was once close with, a grief-stricken Otto is isolated and in constant pain. He rages like a wounded bull as he goes about his daily life in the tiny neighborhood […]
Word of the Year
In my very first post here I said I’ve never been a New Year resolution kind of gal. I still maintain that I am not. For me, the resolutions are too specific and confined that make me feel destined to fail. As a lifelong perfectionist failure is way outside my comfort zone. Over the last […]
Taking the Longview
It is pretty special to be able to post on the occasion of my birthday. I note that today, Saturday January 14, is also Organize Your Home Day, an Awareness Observances that encourages us to declutter our homes, lives and ultimately our minds. Last year, on this very day, my family house in Hackensack, New […]
When your brain & heart are overwhelmed.
Recently, I had one of those weekends where I did way too much. I haven’t had one of these kinds of weekends in a while. I overcommitted myself and tried to “do it all”, without really thinking about the emotional exhaustion it might bring. One of the weekend activities involved attending a birthday party of […]