I met Christina Rasmussen, from Second Firsts, early in my widowhood, on her first book tour. She was in Boston and I was in NH, so I drove to the book store holding the event, and heard her speak for the first time. It didn’t change the emotions of my widowhood, but her words, her philosophy about life after loss touched me deeply. It was my…
Widowed Memories
Quality Time
You may have noticed that last Tuesday, there was no post from me. In short, we had a major power outage at my work, starting the Sunday prior, and being the only IT person, it fell to me keep the business running. I left home Sunday evening, towards the office, and I was there until 3 A.M. or so. Then home for a few hours, then back to the…
Grief. Secondarily~
The easy affection between us. The teasing. The flirtatious wink across the room from him to me. The sensation of electricity skimming across my skin when he entered a room where I was, even before I saw him.The passion. Holding hands. The sweet kisses that lasted for at least 30 seconds because I’d read a book about relationships early on in our…
Scared to Remain, Scared to Change
I have always hated change. Especially when something would change drastically or quickly, and I didnt have much choice in the matter. Like that time when I was about 7 years old and we went on a class field trip to a Maple Farm, and I somehow ended up with a gigantic ball of maple syrup in my long, curly, gorgeous hair. And then my dad, for…
Whispers of Memory~
Whispers of memory In the halls of Time Drift through me Like the clouds of mist That suddenly appeared around us as we wandered the soft ground of Muir Woods so many years ago. Memories that begin, now, with our final times together. Me, huddled in the courtyard gardens of hospice rocking to and fro on my knees, arms hugging my…
Favorite Parent
There was always a bit of competition between Megan and I as to who could be the “favorite” parent. It was playful, obviously, but between the two of us, we were always trying to get the “better” birthday present for Shelby, or take her to the more memorable thing to do, or tell the funniest joke. Whomever could make Shelby laugh harder…
Over the Edge. Maybe~
5 years and 9 months into this life without Chuck, I may have, Possibly Gone over the edge. It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. Our world that is so critical and judgemental of how we grieve, Those who tend to be uncomfortable with others who refuse to play the game of life their understood way… Well, they might think I’ve gone over the edge.
Mom’s Pajamas
Megan spent a lot of time in her pajamas. It kind of came with the territory, spending so much time in the hospital. When she was home, she often wasn’t nearly at 100%, so being in her pajamas was comfortable, warm, and easy. If there was no need to been seen in public, she figured, why get all dressed up and ready? Pajamas made sense. She…
A Hallmark Heartbreak Kind of Holiday
My birthday was hard. Thanksgiving was hard. Christmas and New Years were both hard. Yet it is the “Hallmark Holiday” that seems to burn more than build the wave of sadness.Every Valentine’s Day growing up, I wrote out cards and put them in classmates construction paper mailboxes but only for the girls. Life is different now and kids can like…
A Life Unfinished …
It hangs in mid-air, swaying through the trees, like an echo, sometimes, and other times, like a scream. That life unfinished, the one we didn’t get to have, because you died. It lingers there, in the breeze, like a hundred-thousand question marks, and never any answer. That life unfinished haunts me sometimes. I wish I had a book I…
Paradox
Anniversaries are, in general, a prompt for looking back. They’re an annual reminder to be reminded of the past. While oftentimes, an anniversary is also a milestone, it still remains that, simply put, an anniversary measures the passage of time. They don’t really MEAN anything to widows. Our person is neither more, nor less dead on…
Sticks and Stones
Sticks and stones…They were wrong, words do hurt…. Today I went to pay bills and my computer needed to be restarted. It had erased a password to sign in and pay the water bill. I knew I had it written down somewhere but, of course, my life has been tuned upside-down for the past 10 months and things are not organized like they should be.