I can no longer say “one year ago, Megan did this”. She’s been gone 369 days. Today isn’t anything special or significant in the grand scheme of things, but it is interesting to me how the one year mark mentally appears to be a weight off of my shoulders in a sense. I have experience now. I’ve been through Thanksgiving,…
Widowed Holidays
New Life, Old Life
If I’m being 100% honest, which I always am in my writing about loss, there are actually two of me. Version One of me was born on September 26, 1971, and she died on July 13, 2011. Version Two of me was born on the same day, within seconds even, of version one’s tragic death. Version One never saw it coming. A massive heart-attack took her husband…
Grief Like A River
For the past few weeks, I have become weary of this grief. It’s not that I want to deny or forget my husband. I am still talking to him and kissing his photo in the mornings. I still think of him many times throughout the day and remember his words and his mannerisms and the unique way he walked down the hill toward the car. It is just that the…
The First Mother’s Day
Two days ago, I experienced my first Mother’s Day without Megan. Had you asked me back in January how I would have handled it, I would have expressed sheer terror at the prospect. At that time, just two months since losing her, all I could imagine was that I would be an emotional train wreck, and would probably have just called my mother and…
My Two Mother’s Day
I have struggled with Mother’s Day all my life. I lost my own mother when I was nine, many of you know. I don’t really remember my father knowing what to do with that day anymore afterwards. We had no other family around to celebrate, and so it just kind of became a non-holiday in our house. I sometimes wish we had continued to make it about her -…
Centenary
This week in Australia and New Zealand we are leading up to the centenary of our initial engagement in the First World War at Gallipoli in Turkey, an engagement that for Australia is often considered the birth of the nation. Most of the documentaries, news reports and commemorations surrounding the anniversary are focused on the men who went away…
A Forgotten Card
Ian and I never particularly did Valentines day. Although I *like* getting the gifts and stuff, I never felt it a necessity. It’s a more than a bit over-commercialised to me, which is thankfully quite a protective view-point in my after. But the day still holds memories. Some good. Some that trigger a sense of guilt.John was born in the late…
Brave Love
I’m writing you tonight from my hotel room in Seattle – en route to a four-night stay in Alaska. I hadn’t really given any thought to what I was going to write today for this post, as I’ve spent the better part of the day running around like crazy. It could have been about the usual stuff of Valentine’s Day… like how bitchy I’ve been all week…
My Forever Valentine
I’ve been back home, in Brisbane, Australia, for a couple of days now. As it seems to go with most vacations, it’s so good to go away and then it’s so good to get home. Getting off the plane after the 13-hour flight from LA and walking in to the arms of my wonderful parents, who came to town to collect me from the airport, was a good feeling.
Too Short
Valentine’s Day. Another very difficult time of year for many of us widowed people. Two years ago, Mike came in the door with a delighted grin on his face. He brought me a big box of chocolate from our wonderful local chocolatier, and a new garden hose I’d been wanting, in its own new gift bag he had purchased along with a beautiful…
Layers of Loss
I awakened this morning, on the last day of 2014, with the images of my sister and mother on my heart. They died 6 and 7 years ago, respectively, during the holiday season, and I realised I had done nothing, this year, to mark their lives and deaths—not a picture or a mention, anywhere. I have been so consumed with the loss of my beloved that…
New Years Crash
Ever since that calendar started to read 2015 about 24 hours or so ago, I have been feeling a little bit down. I keep forgetting that New Years Eve and New Years Day make me incredibly sad. I don’t know why I keep forgetting this, but I do. Each year since my husband’s death, the sadness surrounding New Years always seems to come out of nowhere and…