Sometimes I’d swear Mike is here with me. I keep getting the sensation of his presence…or maybe, my mind and heart are just working overtime to remember. To remember how it felt when he was in the room with me. The sound of his breath, his footsteps…how he looked, the familiar freckles on his forearms, his latest mustache creation, his…
Widowed Memories
The Box
I put a blue sticky note on it so the movers wouldn’t pack it. I carefully carried it to the car, hefting its astonishing weight, and placed it gently in the back seat. Alone for a few moments at the new place, I picked it up again, and carried it close to my body up to the new bedroom and found its new spot where it snugly fits. I closed the door…
Daydream Driving
I was driving around town the other day and I suddenly became aware of my thoughts. You know how when you’re driving sometimes it’s kind of by rote, and you forget how you got where you were going because you’re so busy chewing on some memory or idea in your head? I paused at a stoplight and looked around. I realized I had been thinking about…
It Starts Soon
I watched a documentary last night about Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Pretty heavy watching, you might think, and you’d be right for so many reasons. My husband and I shared a love for American history and traveled to so many National Parks over the 4 years we traveled as Happily Homeless. Little Bighorn in Montana was a powerful…
Nobody Remembers
If you are widowed, and you are reading this, then you know that missing your person and the life you had together is as constant as breathing – it is a new fact in your new life that you didn’t ask for, and it’s just there, always and forever. The missing of what was never goes away. But then, above and beyond that missing, is a whole other kind…
Living Adventurously In Loss
Even though our adventure together did not last a lifetime as we expected – my fiancé and I certainly lived our days adventurously. He convinced me to go skydiving a week before we began dating to my surprise. I am not an adrenaline junky, but somehow he had a way of making me surprise myself by the things he was able to bring out in me. I always…
Grief Rising. But Love, Too
Tomorrow my daughter Rachael-Grace and I leave on our 6 month Nothin’ But Love tour. It will be quite an experience for both of us, filled with every emotion of the alphabet as we honor and remember my husband/her dad, meet people along the way and hear their stories, offer workshops to women around the country and, well, who knows what else. …
Reminder
I know with V-Day having past, that it’s good to have reminders that their love lives on. So I’d like to share this favorite story of mine:It was February 12th, 2009, and I decided to do something I had given up after Michael’s passing…create homemade Valentine’s Day cards. Making cards was one of my favorite things and with it being a dismal…
Slow Dance, Last Dance
So, here I am, writing my first blog right before Valentine’s Day. Right before what would have been our 24th wedding anniversary. I’m getting ahead of myself, I know. I was going to introduce myself, give some back-story, and I promise I will. But maybe, because of the timing of this first entry, I’ll give you a glimpse into the world that was…
Dark and Hidden
I am honest on this blog in that I don’t lie about anything I write. Ever. But I don’t shareabout everything here. I don’t talk about the problems in my marriage with Dave and I don’t talk much about my dating life now. There are some things I just don’t want to write about here. But what would it be like if we all had a moment or a day or a week…
To Be Changed
Last night just before going to bed, for some reason I felt called to go back through some really old journal entries from the years leading up to when I met Drew. I don’t always pay attention to those little cues, but last night for whatever reason I did. I smiled to read some of the entries about our first days together… about how safe and…
Birthday
Friday was Dave’s birthday. He would’ve been 41. I met him nearly 20 years ago. These three facts feel impossible. The day I met him feels like yesterday. I will always think of him as the 23 year old I first met. And his birthday keeps showing up to remind me that I’ll soon be older than he ever got to be. He was a sweet, chubby baby. His aunt…