⌛️ 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 […]
Widowed Therapy
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 […]
Memories Well-Coached
Tomorrow is Father’s Day and I’ll take this opportunity to write first a little about the special bond my late dad, Jack, had with my late husband Rich. There were some commonalities. My father’s middle name was Richard and they’d both served in the United States Navy, my dad also a member of the US […]
Me Day
I took a last-minute vacation day last week to spend the day alone. The decision came after looking at the calendar and realizing almost every day between now and the end of school is occupied with kid activities. Once school is over, I’ll have three feral boys in my space all day, every day. I […]
My Evolving Relationship with Old Routines
I started running again the past week. My usual route, 3 miles around the lake a few minutes from my house, and the neighborhood I grew up in. This has been my usual nightly running route on and off for the past 15+ years, though it’s a trail I have been traversing since I was […]
Back to Therapy
In response to feeling overwhelmed lately, I have been buying books and exploring therapy options. It started with ‘The Let Them Theory’ by Mel Robbins a few months ago and I wrote a post on that. Now I’m reading ‘What Happened To You?’ by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. and Oprah Winfrey. I have made […]
Trying to Stay Young
Lola and I are invited to dinner one evening next week at the home of Michael and Hannan, who live in the neighborhood but are not, strictly speaking, our neighbors, as we live several short blocks apart. Lola introduced us. It’s been more than one year. As best I can tell, Michael and Hannan would […]
Squad Goals
A week ago, I was wrapping up a long weekend with my widow squad. Ten of us, who over the last 4 years, built a bond at Camp Widow San Diego. The Camp Widow format change was our catalyst to adjust how we show up for each other. For us, Camp had begun to serve […]