Every writer experiences it. Staring at the blank page. Sometimes no words come at all, and sometimes, there are so many words we’re not sure which ones to put down. Grief is kind of like that. Sometimes we sit in blank stupefaction while the horror of our new reality without our spouses showers down around us. Other times we are inundated with so…
Widowed Milestones
Grown Up Problems
Mike was never good at dealing with grown up problems. He truly did have a childlike spirit – that was sometimes fun, and sometimes frustrating. When it came to taxes, phone calls, fixing things, filling out forms, and bigger worries, he was often useless. I did most of all that. And when he died…well, widowed people understand all the…
Being Here Now
The day before this posts is my birthday. I am now 49. Mike was 45 when we met; I was 31. It’s hard to imagine I am that old now, and I spend a lot of time thinking back to Mike at my age. And I remember all the birthdays we spent together…I have kept all of the cards we gave each other. We always did something special, but he made me feel…
“Baby” Steps
Megan’s younger brother will be having a little boy sometime around late July, right around her birthday. He’s getting married in October, just after my birthday. Shelby is ten now, getting her straight A’s and growing like a weed. This past sunday, Sarah, Shelby and I attended a baby shower for two friends that were originally close to…
Mixed Emotions
After two and a half months in Virginia helping my family through a medical crisis, I am finally back in Kona for a few final months. Kona, Hawaii, where I moved with my late husband in 2001. This magical, special and most beautiful place where we made so many memories.Mike is here. His spirit will always be here, to me, even as I take a part of…
Building New Wings Ain’t Easy
For the first few years after Drew died, I lived in between lives. Back then, I remember distinctly feeling that way. Many of the photographs I took spoke to this. I wasn’t in my old life, nor was I in what I would define as a new life. I recall wondering what it would be like to one day live in a new life, instead of the in-between. Back then, I…
Limbo Girl
In a few weeks we will hit the four year mark of Mike’s death. Four years. On that day I will have survived 1,460 days without him. I only got 5040 days with him. Life for those of us left behind continues to speed by. Some days I panic a little that grief has stolen so much time. Then I realize how much grief has taught me, and how much I have…
Bleeding Out the Pain
Last week I shared about feeling like some new layers of my grief are beginning to thaw as we shifted the calendar into what is my 5th year on this journey. I was pretty teary the week before, but it wasn’t until this past week that the breakdown came. Quite honestly, I’m glad for it. It was such a release. I don’t even know why it came when…
Permanent Markers
After Mike died, the story of his stuff was an ongoing issue for a long time. His elder daughter and I cleared his closet a couple of months out because I had to make room for things being moved upstairs in preparation for renting out the downstairs. Then later that year, both girls spent several days with me dividing and clearing most of what was…
A Few Steps
Earlier this week I made the trip from my home in Kona, once again, to my parents’ house in Virginia. I am grateful for the reprieve back on the island, where I was able to attend my stepdaughter’s wedding, visit with friends, my boyfriend, and find some rest. Now, I am in Charleston, SC with my mom. We planned this trip to see whether this area is…
Home Is Not a House
I’ve lived in lots of places in my life so far. I was born in Maryland and raised in Arlington, Virginia until I was 6, at which time we moved to nearby McLean. I attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC and lived on campus there, moving each year, in the dorms and residential housing. After college I moved back in with my parents, and then…
D-Day
For any new readers, this is a continuation of my current situation which involves being back in Virginia, where I grew up, from my home of 15 years in Kona, Hawaii, where I lived with my beautiful late husband until his death in 2013 and further into my strange new world without him with a new boyfriend and my dogs, until the foreclosure is…