There was a time, early on in my loss, where I felt like I was constantly on the search for my husband. Every second of every day was spent , in my mind and heart, trying to locate him somehow. People kept telling me over and over and over that he is always with me, that he is in my heart, and all those other cliche’, blah-blah-blah things that…
Widowed Suddenly
Room for What Comes
Last weekend, I climbed a mountain with my sangha friends to honour my husband and to raise money for a fund set up in his name. I came home from that mountain imbued with a new courage. My hike up that trail, under the most adverse conditions, has helped me to let go of the fears I have had around conquering other obstacles in my life. I have…
Around the Corner
On July 12th, 2011, during another ordinary day in my previous life, I could have never in a zillion years predicted or seen coming that only hours later, my husband would leave for work and never return again. I could NOT have foreseen that he would be sitting at the computer desk in our bedroom one minute, and the next morning,I would be jarred…
Making It To The Top
Tomorrow, the day after this posting, marks the first anniversary of my beloved husband’s death. I can hardly believe it is true. One year. It feels like yesterday. It feels like a lifetime ago. So much has changed since he died. I have done many things, in spite of my crushing grief. I have visited my home neighbourhood in Indiana, and sat with…
What About Don?
It is now 3 years and almost 11 months (next week)since my beautiful husband left for work and never came home. In that time, I have (and still do) been to grief counseling weekly, tried many different widowed support groups, become a member of several online and in-person groups for widowed people, found support through Soaring Spirits and have…
The Musician: Part I
I’m going to tell you a story. It is an intensely personal one; one I haven’t felt open to sharing until now. But it has persisted at knocking at my brain, and I finally feel ready to let it out. So here goes. And since it is so long for a blog, I will be dividing it into several parts. The Musician: Part I Life after death is a…
As Memories Fade
Today is the first day of June, and eight days from the first anniversary of my beloved husband’s sudden death. While last year, at this time, England was sweltering under a heat wave, the temperature has barely climbed above 55F (13C) this spring. I check the weather forecast obsessively, grasping for some sign of a sliver of warmth. I want to…
The Knowing
When you lose your beautiful husband to sudden and shocking death at age 39, just four years into your happy and flourishing marriage, one of the biggest things you are left with is something that I call “the knowing.” What is the knowing? It is having the knowledge about a whole host of things regarding life and death, that your previous self had…
Where are you?
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, because it never changes: Mike is ALWAYS on my mind. He doesn’t go away when I’m working, when I’m busy, when I’m cleaning or shopping, when I’m hanging out with friends old or new, when I’m listening to music or watching a movie…he doesn’t go away even when I’m thinking of my…
He knew. This too, shall pass.
When my husband and I were ‘new’, and so full of love for each other, he would caution me that this aspect of our relationship, the euphoria and the intensity, would change. “It won’t always feel like this,” he would say. Extremist that I am, my heart opened and softened by his attentiveness, I did not believe it for a moment. I had found,…
Life Piles Up
It is the middle of May, now, and we are moving toward the anniversary of your death. Sunday, May 24th, is the day the police came to tell us they had found your son, dead, in his flat. I remember that moment as if it happened yesterday. It was a Saturday afternoon, and we had not long returned from our weekly shop. We were relaxing on the sofa,…
Things in Common
This might sound kind of silly or stupid or not at all important in the grand scheme of things related to losing one’s life partner to death – but just bear with me, if you don’t mind. It’s how I’ve been feeling lately, and I feel the need to get these thoughts out. There are a lot of things that my husband and I had in common. A lot of things.