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…
Widowed Memories
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.
Superbowl Sunday and a Brand New Life
The year was 2005, and it was a cold day in February. I looked out the window of my New Jersey apartment, which sat on the Hudson River. NYC looked back at me. I put the coffee pot on, and started making the meatballs and sauce. My Nana Mary’s lasagna recipe, with bow tie pasta and meatballs and ribs on the side. I had made it for Don the…
A Hall of Memories~
You and I, my Love, We… Are echoes in the halls of memories. In lands far away and beyond the clouds so beautifully and achingly tinged with vibrant colors, I search for you.Green tinged mountains with trees so tall they reach up into and beyond those clouds, Valleys of rock that jut sharply into one another and, if I squint my eyes, become…
Home is where the heart is
It’s taken me months and months to bring up the courage to go to dinner with a friend. Sounds crazy but she was Clayton’s favorite coworker and he is all we have in common. I knew it hit her hard when he passed and I knew she would want to talk about it. I guess that is just another layer of widowhood that others don’t understand – We want…
Whatever
I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be feeling, now moving towards year 5 since Megan’s death. Shelby is a preteen (and it certainly shows), and moves ever so closer to wanting to spend time with her friends versus us. Her brother is married with a growing family of his own, with two sons that Megan never got to meet. One of our…
Social Media Surprises
When Tin passed away, my social media was flooded with posts and photos showing just how much he was loved and how much support I had to lean on taking my first steps on this new beach. Each day had been continued support helping me step forward and weather the waves.Over time, the posts and check-ins faded and I found myself a bit bipolar about…
Losing the holiday weight
Losing the Holiday Weight The holidays were rough. My first without Tin and there were days I just could barely keep it together. Christmas is over and I spent New Year’s alone for the first time in years with no one to plan a new year of adventures with. It’s been a struggle and I have 3 more months before I hit the anniversary of his…
Inside the Rhythms of the Music
In the beginning, there was music. Back in 1998, in the days when AOL was a thing, I went into a music chat / trivia room about 1980s song lyrics, and met Don Shepherd. We talked about Lionel Richie songs, great singers, guitar players, and more. Then we just kept on talking. Seven years and lots of plane trips from Florida to NY and back…
Wandering~
I wander quite frequently. It’s mostly what I’ve done, and what I do, in this widowland. For 5 years and counting now. Physically and mentally…I wander. Physically, in that I’ve spent these years since the death of my beloved husband wandering the country in my pink car, towing my equally pink T@b Teardrop trailer behind me. Mentally, in that my…