One month away from the third anniversary of Clayton’s passing and some moments it feels like it was just yesterday. Each year has had its challenges and this year I’ve lost our cat Stallone. I’ve written before that it’s the build up to certain dates that’s worse then the actual days themselves. Each season has […]
Widowed Signs from Loved One
“There is No Remedy for Love but to Love More”
The past three days have been loaded with all the feels. Friday was Lunar New Year, which is an important holiday for Boris’s family. They usually celebrated as a family in some way and he’d always get a little red envelope with money. I know the holiday must be challenging for his parents and sister […]
Afterlife Thoughts
I have complicated feelings about the Afterlife. I grew up in a Christian and relatively conservative family and I used to have confidence in my beliefs: when you die, you go to Heaven or Hell. It’s that simple. Then, I got older and started to question the existence of Hell. After that, I began to […]
The Unlikely Squirrel
Last week my therapist asked me if I felt Boris’s presence lately. I thought about it for a moment and then realized the answer was no. It had been a while since something happened that felt like a sign from him or his presence was there. Over the past 2.5 years, I’ve heard specific songs […]
Faith In Fingerprints
Since Tin’s passing, many have said he is with me, many have said he’s moving things in and out of my path to help make things easier and more successful for me. On many occasions, I have found pennies, dimes, seen cardinals, butterflies and got a call or text just at the moment I needed […]
A Huge Moment in Northwest Texas~
It was completely unexpected. My first road trip since the pandemic began. I wasn’t towing my pink trailer, but I did add a bunch of decals to my pink car, deciding that my car needs to represent my Odyssey of Love just as much as my trailer does, covered as it is with the hundreds […]
The Gates of Grief
I realize I have gotten to a point where I go through my week, head down and pushing things back to keep grief at bay. The weekend hits and my first day is full of errands and obligations but my second day is dedicated to allowing the gates of grief to open when I write […]
Embracing the Detours
This year has meant a lot of detours for many. For all of us who are widowed, the metaphor of a detour is a bold one… the idea of the road being closed ahead and suddenly we are to choose a new direction…
Lost Belonging
When I was in high school, I had one guy friend named Matt. He was the only guy that gave this outgoing, unconventional kid a chance. The feeling of belonging holds tight space in my heart. I was supposed to have lunch one day with Matt but he didn’t come to school. At the last […]
Mothers’ Day
This is the sixth Mother’s day since Megan’s death. Shelby is now starting to actually outgrow her mother’s shoes, and she’s almost as tall at 13 as Megan was at 33. She looks like her. A real “bean pole” right now. At this age, she’s more concerned about video games, reading, riding her bike, and texting her friends than anything else. From the outside looking in, it’s almost as-if she’s forgotten about her mother.
Messages from Mike
There seems to come a time in life for those of us who do not grow up with formal religion – and perhaps it’s triggered by loss and hardship, perhaps by age – where we search for meaning in losses and in life, and messages or clues that there might be something before and after […]
Safe
I miss him all the time, but right now with all the uncertainty in the world I feel even more alone because of his absence. The truth is, Mike would have loved being quarantined with me. And, I would have liked it too. Like always, we would have made the best of it together. The other day, as I wandered aimlessly through the grocery store, I wished Mike was there with me. He’d have made me laugh. He’d even have made shopping during the Coronavirus “fun” because he’d be saying all sorts of goofy things to me as we walked through the dishevelled aisles.