We can not shed our grief like I had hoped early on. Instead, we must carefully and tenderly absorb it into our bones. Grief is in the air you breath, in swirls around in your coffee, it is in the sunshine that warms your shoulders, and it lingers in your bathwater. You can not escape grief; I now realize that this isn’t possible. And, it is not the goal. It never was.
Widowed Suddenly
Just how do we ever do this?
Image by Sarah Treanor on www.streanor.com This is my 104th piece of writing for Soaring Spirits International, which means I have been writing here for exactly 2 years. A piece a week. And sometimes I write more frequently on my own personal blogsite. I had been widowed for over two years, and had lost my […]
Everything but the Kitchen Sink – take 2
I originally posted this blog April 2019. But, it merits a repost. The topic is sexual bereavement and it is very real and it need to be discussed more candidly and more often.
As widowed people we do not often discuss how our sex lives die with them. But, the truth is that this is an enormous secondary loss.
Sexual bereavement is a thing. It is very real and it profoundly affects us as we live on without the one we love. Daily, we miss the intimacy of being a couple. And, nothing, not one thing can replace this. The daily nuances that exist between two lovers. Your unspoken language. The secret words you whispered to one another. The tone he reserved for just you. The dialect of love.
As surviving spouses we miss the stolen glances. The way his adoring eyes watched me prepare a meal. The winks he sent me across the room during a dinner party. Tenderly placing my hand on his leg as he drove us some place. Walking side by side and casually reaching for his familiar hand; and, then interlocking my fingers with the man I love. Their hands. Their kiss. That place on the small of my back that only he knew. The way he gently brushed the hair out of my eyes before his lips met mine. The way I fell into his chest as he pulled me to him. All of this. Every last thing. This is the stuff we ache for. This is the stuff that I quietly grieve.
Red, White, & Very Blue
*Content warning: discussion of suicidal ideation/suicide and psychiatric hospitalization July 4th is one of those holidays that maybe you wouldn’t expect to be grief-y, but for me it is. Maybe it is more trauma-related rather than grief. Anyway, I thought if anybody would understand, it would be fellow widows and grievers. So, I thought I […]
The Evolution of Grief (part 3 of many)
After 4.7 years, I can write to you and say that I actually like my life again. And, I am almost sort of “happy” once again too. I have come to accept my life without him; and, I am also excited about my future. These are all things that I could not imagine when Mike first died. But, alas, I am a very different widow than the one who began writing to you in 2018. Early on, I created mantras for myself so that I could somehow survive in a world where he is not. Once upon a time I used to say, “love got me here, and love will get me through”. And… it has. I was right. Love (in all its forms) for the win.
Things.
I still have so many of Boris’s things. When he died, I think I moved too quickly in getting rid of a lot of stuff. I thought that I had to, I guess. I donated tons of shoes and clothes and some furniture. I even sold some of his valuable music and computer equipment. But, […]
Your Touch (edited 2021)
Touch has helped bring me further present. It has helped reawaken me to the moment I am living in. Touch has resuscitated me in ways that nothing else can. Touch has given me the air I need when I was struggling to breath life back into myself. For me, touch has been healing in a new a different ways.
Touch has brought me back in touch with my humanness. I have allowed myself to acknowledged that I am still alive. And, because I draw breathe, my skin still hungers for the touch of another human being. Touch in and of itself is just that. It is not love, but it is something. And, sometimes a nebulous thing is really a big deal.
Wanderlust Revisited
I need to see new things. And, also, see the same things – somewhere else. I need to stand on different street corners. And, walk roads that lead to new people and places. I need to breathe the air – somewhere else. Anywhere else. I feel like I am holding my breath, Living here in […]
Knock off Life
The problem is, I have no idea what or who will help me feel this Soul fulfillment that I long for. It has been 4.6 years since I have felt truly content and I do not know when a sense of peace will ever return to me.
Strongish (again)
As the days rolled into weeks, and then became months, strong continued to mean different things. Things that I never previously associated with being strong.
I learned that strong means laying on the cold, hard kitchen floor crying for three months straight.
I discovered that strong means sobbing silently while I cook my sons dinner every night for a year.
Strong is a lot of things.
Strong is learning to hide my tears behind sunglasses at the grocery store.
Strong is getting up everyday to repeat a life that is nothing like the one I imagined.
Strong is making homespun, amateur attempts at creating a new life, when all I want is my old life back.
Marry Me (2021 edition)
On May 25, 2016, he asked me to marry him. Then, he died before our wedding day. In 2018 when I originally wrote this, I sat re-reading those two sentences again and again and again. I just couldn’t seem to process the words the letters were forming. Now, nearly five years from the date, my […]
Being
There is a lot happening in my life right now and that is an understatement. And, despite all the uncertainty, I am surprisingly calm. Friends of mine notice a calmness in my voice when we speak and they are right, I am very “chill” considering the enormity of the changes I am living through right […]