Photos my own A few weeks ago, I was on a Swim Trek holiday in Mallorca, putting in some training for my “big swim” planned for the middle of July – crossing the Lac Léman/Lake Geneva at its widest point (13 km – a smidge over 8 miles). I do want to do it. Really, […]
Widowed Emotions
Fun in Funeral?
I booked the flight for Clayton’s funeral last night. It’s bothering me because a funeral isn’t supposed to be 4 years after someone passes. The celebration of life we had originally planned was put on pause and so has a lot of my growing through grief. Searching for flights and making travel arrangements didn’t cause […]
Summer Solstice
Summer solstice. Winter solstice. The longest and shortest days of the year in the northern hemisphere. When I imagine the four seasons, I often will envision the face of a round clock, Summer representing the number twelve and Winter representing its opposite number, six. June and December. Six and twelve on […]
THINKING ABOUT
BRAVERY What does it mean to be brave? Definition of bravery 1 : the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty : the quality or state of being brave : courage showing bravery under fire. As I write I am on the doorstep of the Memorial Day […]
Comfortably Run
Edward’s 53rd Birthday Comfortably run. No, not a typo. Simply a not particularly brilliant nod to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. I do indeed mean that I am comfortably run. By a 10 km road run. I am more than a little bit pooped. I can’t remember the last time I did a 10 km. I […]
The Department of Care-Griever Collections (DCGC)
I’ve brought up some of the ins and outs of being a care-griever. I can’t speak to the emotions that come with sudden loss but I can speak about the experience watching someone you love slowly fade. Being a caregiver for Clayton I had the outward goal to provide him comfort for the rest of […]
Too Stubborn
This week I was reminded of just how stubborn I can be. On Thursday, May 5th, I stepped wrong on an uneven sidewalk and went down hard, presumably twisting my ankle. No one saw it and I sat there a good 5 minutes trying to recover. Right there on the sidewalk, the impact of this […]
A Frightening Game
I think it is important to continue to evaluate your emotions as you travel further forward into the future leaving behind that milestone marked as your new start – AL (After Loss). We categorize our lives on timelines and anniversaries of all types. My cathartic calendar holds holidays, birthdays, reunions, and all kinds of anniversaries. […]
Daydreaming.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Boris came back to life now. If he just appeared again, alive and starting where he left off. Maybe he was never dead. Maybe he was just away. I have little daydreams about this pretty often (And, sometimes my subconscious joins in and I have vivid […]
Deeply, Genuinely Happy
Main image by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash It’s not the kind of thing that we go around saying, is it? At least not the Brits. At least not most Western Europeans. And at least not on a regular, ongoing basis. Sure – we hear people say it, we might say it ourselves, when something specific […]
Widowed Whiplash
I haven’t had much downtime lately. Life is just moving at a very rapid pace and yesterday my body decided we were in desperate need of a red light and slammed on the brakes. I was at work feeling sluggish after a night of thunderstorms and random coughing keeping me up. Not unmanageable, but on […]
Love has Paws
Dear Kitty Cat, What a silly name your dad gave you. I tried to convince him to choose a more creative name, but he was settled on Kitty Cat. Now, I couldn’t imagine you having any other name. And I could not imagine life without you, though I know all too well how fragile that […]