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 […]
Widowed Memories
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 […]
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 […]
In Praise of Love and Mountains
Photo and Art by Véronique Balcerzak After Mike died, I made an effort, particularly at Christmastime, to ensure there was a gift from him, not only for each of the kids, but also for myself. The first year, it was soft toy teddys made from his t-shirts. I remember that we needed some kind of […]
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 […]
Learning to Shuck Oysters at 55
Main image by Tommaso Cantelli on Unsplash. Other pictures my own. I am a bit of an Omnivore, in that I eat everything, and always have done. I have never been a fussy eater, I have a great appetite (which I didn’t lose even when I had gastroenteritis, aged about 14), and I truly relish […]
Comfort Food
First, there was his text wishing me a happy new year, then a call. My nephew Kevin said he wanted to get together for dinner. He wondered if I would be interested dining at a dismal Chinese restaurant located in a suburban strip mall where his grandfather –my dad—liked to go for family occasions. I […]
Channelling Spirits this Christmas
Image by Rob Wicks on Unsplash Today is my first “me day” in a fat week. I have had eight (mostly enjoyable, if also busy) continuous days of catering and making, shopping and cooking, organising and preparing, washing and folding, sweeping and wiping, loading and unloading, and even socialising. But today, I said, more to […]
Observance Breeds Awareness
It seems like every day, week, and month there’s an official Awareness Observance for just about every thing under the sun. For instance, as I write we’re in the midst of Spiritual Literacy Month established in 1996 to encourage us to read books with spiritual themes, we are also currently in the middle of “It’s […]
Regrouping After Trauma
Step By Step Professionals who write about trauma these days say that when a person experiences a trauma (small or large) it is important to allow the trauma to “keep moving through” our psyche. Last week I experienced a trauma that bumped into a bigger trauma that looms in my life—Death. Death was present in […]