Ring, ring, ring… ☎️ Hi, hola… You have reached Liliana. I’m not available to get to the phone right now, or respond to your text messages, or pay my bills and freaking parking tickets on time so they freaking double and triple, or keep up with doctors’ appointments, or house maintenance. Also, I started a […]
Widowed Therapy
A Mother Dolphin Mourns Her Pup
A recent New York Times piece about a mother dolphin observed carrying her deceased pup in her mouth, and accompanied by fellow dolphins, poses the question: Do animals experience grief? I, for one, believe they do. At least when we’re talking about the most complex higher mammals, including, in addition to these dolphins, killer whales, […]
Permission to Be/Come 😊
I feel like I barely finished our summer travel plans, and the summer is almost over. Two and a half years after my loss, I’m still having to remind myself of how much energy everything takes. It has gotten better, but man… this process feels so slow sometimes!!! Subconsciously, I think the more I’m able […]
A Gift of an Unlikely Place
I know it’s a good “problem” to have, but maintaining three homes and four dogs can put a nice hurtin’ on the balances of ‘ye old credit cards. When I got a nice offer from a credit card company recently with a no interest balance transfer for 18 billing cycles I was all in. After several […]
Repeat After Me…👩🏻🏫
I’m a Bad🤨$$, you’re a Bad🤨$$, we are ALL Bad🤨$$es!!! The past few weeks have left me exhausted and depleted, once again. Yes, there has been some joy and fun, but between planning my daughter’s 13th birthday party, surviving another Mother’s Day, my daughter’s trip to Puerto Rico, and a few other energy-consuming events, this Memorial […]
Once Upon a Time…👑
…In a Far, Far Away Kingdom 👸🏻 In the kingdom of a city in the USA, there lived a beautiful, brave, brave princess. She had just entered teenagehood, and she lived with her loving parents, the King and Queen, her older brother, the Prince, and the royal pet, June, the collie-lab mix. They lived a […]
Scrambled Thoughts 🍳 with a Side of Trauma.
⌛️ It has been 842 days, 13 hours, and 41 minutes. Roughly 2 years, 3 months, and 22 days. But the trauma, the slow agonizing torture, started for me more than five years ago with his terminal brain cancer diagnosis. It blindsided us. If your person was ill for a while, you know what I […]
Hi, My Name is Liliana…
THE MORNING I WALKED INTO A GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP I sat there, in my car, for what felt like an eternity. It was a cold, overcast Thursday morning in mid-February 2024, just like in the movies. I drove one hour to a city in Virginia to attend a Loss of Spouse Grief Share support Group, […]
Touch Deprivation
A friend and I were recently talking about the touch deprivation experienced in widowhood. It’s one of those extra layers of loss that not everyone thinks about. But it reminds me of everyone touting the importance of skin-to-skin contact when a new baby is born. We use touch to express affection, and I don’t mean […]
The Dance Crew
Last week, I spent 4 perfect days in Cabo with a handful of my widow friends. It takes a little more work to get to Mexico, so our entire crew wasn’t able to join for this one. But the 5 of us made the most of our time together. Contrary to what an outsider might […]
Grief Does Not Take A Vacation During Vacation
It never fails to bum me out that I cannot / am no longer obligated to call my Mom when I am leaving for a trip, arrive at the first and subsequent destinations, and call her at least every couple days. She did not use a cell phone, so it always had to be a […]
Mysteries of the Future
In April, I started with a new therapist, and I’ve been seeing her consistently since our first session. Today we were discussing secondary losses towards the end of our session. Just as the bulk of my session was winding down, I hit on a new topic that was bigger than the 2 minutes we had […]