A lot of us talk about various times during this horrible journey where a shift begins to happen. It’s nothing concrete or tangible, it may not even be something we can easily define… all we know is that something has changed in us and the way we view what has happened to us. That is the shift.Since the new year began, I’ve been feeling as…
Widowed Suddenly
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…
Grieving for Two
After two and a half years of feeling this soul-changing, earth-shattering loss, I just realized something sort of huge. Well, I always knew it, but I just stopped and actually thought about it, and now I am able to put it into words. It is this: I grieve on behalf of my husband more than I grieve for my husband. I hope that makes sense. I…
The Before Me vs….
…. the “Before Me”. We all know that we are changed after the death of our spouse. We are changed because of the death of our spouse and everything that follows in its wake. But how am I different now? How is the “After Janine” different from the “Before Janine”? Let me count the ways …..1. I am less naive. I know, really know, that…
Ambulance
In the hospital, suffering from myocarditis, Dave accidentally pulled the heart pump out of his vein. This meant that he’d have to have a new heart pump inserted. Instead, while waiting to get the new pump, he crashed. That heart pump had been helping his terribly damaged heart keep plugging along and without it his vitals went downhill fast. The…
Journaling through the Emotions
I’ve been going back over a lot of my old journal entries lately and picked one out to share a part of. For some years now I have been doing this inner-child dialogue technique… Basically having a conversation with that deepest, most vulnerable (and sometimes most wounded) part of myself by asking her questions and allowing her to share until I…
Letters from Home
My husband and I used to have those silly magnetic letters on our kitchen refrigerator back in our New Jersey apartment, and we would leave each other cute and often ridiculous or random messages on the fridge like: “I love you Boo”, or “Yankees won”, or “UR cute.” One of his favorite things to spell out for me in colored letters was “Don ‘N…
Things that have Changed
I am sitting here, marvelling at how far I’ve come since March 1, 2010; I am a different person with the same heart. I can now look back and remember the sharp, stabbing grief of that day. The insanity. The weeks and months directly afterward where I alternated between shrieking pain and dense fog; I rocked and cried or I floated…
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…
Talking to the Echo
There is a space where my husband’s voice once lived, a big empty hole that sits in the center of my hours, my days, my years. It mocks me by following me wherever I go, And it feeds off of it’s own nothingness, Sipping on the hollow void, A cruel silence where there used to be sound.It follows me everywhere, But it is most cruel whenever I try…
The People I Love…
…… have grown in numbers over the past 6 years. Some people have faded from my life. Some have stayed. Some came in during my “after”. And those have never left. I doubt that they ever will. This past weekend I spent time with 8 of these people. They are 8 of the most amazing women I know. And 8 women that I’m proud, and so very grateful, to…
My Home
I live in a wonderful city now. I’ve become more and more comfortable here. I like the weirdness, the outdoorsy-ness, the coffee shops, the rampant recycling and composting and organic gardening. I like the dogs and the green of the woods and the mist hanging in the west hills. I like the bridges and the dragon boats on the river. I like the…