Clayton, The buildup towards your funeral is tearing open wounds I thought were scared strong. I wrote about it last week and what has changed is the intensity and the heaviness. This all should have happened four years ago when the original storm hit. My grief timeline is so out of phase it’s uncharted waters. […]
Widowed Memories
Three Old Men
My close friendships with Eric and Bob go back to our high school days. We have remained so throughout these many years, despite the changes in our respective personal circumstances that inevitably occur over the course of a lifetime: wives and girlfriends, children and grandchildren, jobs and careers, and health being chief among these. The […]
Residual Trauma
Photo my own, from today – Our Lady of the Rocks, Kotor Bay, Montenegro I am not an expert in trauma, though I do try to keep up with the research and literature concerning how trauma affects the body, patterns of behaviour, transformation and healing. I try to keep up on what it means to […]
The Fourth is the Same but Not
Today is the 4th of July but my celebrations for this holiday were yesterday. This is our 2nd Fourth of July without Tony, but we haven’t changed any of our traditions that he and I built. Every year my best friend and her family drive in from St. Louis to fill my home. We setup […]
My Past in My Future
I don’t know how to navigate this. I don’t know how to balance out this future placed bereavement. I have been pressuring myself to “figure it out” because I feel overwhelmed by a lot in life right now. Something has to give or I’m going to crash. My daily routines are way off, and I’ve […]
Tackling the Garage
Tony was a man of many skills. He was a hunter, a carpenter, a BBQ smoker, a gardener, and sometimes a mechanic. With all these skills and hobbies comes a lot of material things. Our garage shelves and walls overflowed with his things. Tony was also not the most organized man; organization is a skill […]
Another Layer to the Levels In Life
I’m happy to say that yesterday my boyfriend Devin and I got engaged! Yesterday I reached a new place in life that I have never been too before. Clayton and I never had the opportunity to get to this point. This weekend I am celebrating where my life has lead me, and the love that […]
I’ll Be Seeing You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l44_n60QQ8 I’ll be seeing you just yesterday you reminded me of your presence when a monarch butterfly came so close to me…flew into the garage and looked around….at the story, when the paint brushes I need showed up in the most unlikely place . . . I am seeing you . . . In all […]
Spontaneous Travel
One of the many ways in which I am different since Tony’s death is my ability and desire to be spontaneous, especially when it comes to travel. This last weekend I went back to the lake for a weekend away. Once again, there were 5 families and comprised of 12 kids and 8 adults. We’ve […]
The Return of the King
Sometimes I want to look back a couple of years and reflect on where I was to help me see just how much I’ve grown. Day to day can sometimes feel like there’s no forward momentum but looking back over months and years shows me I’ve traveled many miles. I had my crown stripped and […]
Three Years of Pleasure and Pain
Main image by Zygimantas Dukauskas on Unsplash Yesterday, 11th June, is the day that Medjool has named “La Journée du ‘Oui’” (“’Yes’ day”). It is the day when, three years ago, in 2019, he chose me. I had already chosen him. Not chosen by default, simply because my sample size of prospective Medjools was One, […]
The Weight of the Wait
There’s a heaviness of my grief that I haven’t talked much about and that grows closer to the end of watching someone die. You know it’s coming. You know it’s soon. For a long time you pray you get to keep them for as much time as possible but near the end my mind changed. […]