One hundred and fifty two days ago my beloved husband transitioned into death. In that time I have learned that the reality of death and grief is something that cannot be understood unless you are in it. I thought I knew something of it, having experienced other loved ones passing. I was wrong. The photo […]
Newly Widowed
Love Always Wins
The Power of Memory Do you ever wonder how certain memories come back to teach us about ourselves? The lesson for me in this week’s post is that dying is damn hard. Sometimes, in the midst of it, we don’t feel the full impact. Then your dog dies and it all comes rushing in. Death […]
The Anatomy of a Love Song
Love Begets Love A lifetime of love, like seeds in soil, sprouts and multiplies in the right conditions. When seeds of love sprout—love blooms. Love begets love. This explains how this precious song arrives here today. The home for this song is a website our family created for Dan named CowboyDan.org. A brain-child of our […]
131 Days
To My Dearest Dan, It has been one hundred thirty-one days since you died and it feels so much longer. It feels as if you are watching me from afar and also, somehow, participating daily in my life with your energy. When I call on you I especially feel you near, although you show up […]
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 […]
Photographs and Memories
Pieces of You Photographs and memories All the love you gave to me Somehow it just can’t be true That’s all I’ve left of you In the midst of meal prep, sorting through items while seeking the right tool in a kitchen drawer, I saw a blackened, overused kitchen fork. It immediately took me to […]
Reel Therapy = Good Medicine
What is Reel Therapy? Gary Solomon’s popular book of the same name, published originally in 2001 and again in 2015, suggests that movies can be a therapeutic tool for our lives. A friend of mine gave me this book a long time ago and I pulled it out recently with an instinct that it might be […]
Crying Feels Different Now
Lately I’ve Been Thinking About Tears . . . . . . feeling them stream down my face and having the sensation that my tears are somehow different now. Rather than tears, they feel like mountain streams with inadequate dams to hold them in place. The tears come without warning and they flow in a […]
Covid Takes and Gives
History Will Bear Witness History will bear witness to the terrible costs of the Worldwide Pandemic known as Covid-19 in the year 2020. In tallying those costs, nothing can compare to the loss of lives: 627,039 in the USA and 4.16 million worldwide to date. Over four million people–gone. The Covid Pandemic took husbands, wives, […]
Of Butterflies, Puppies, and the Dan Neff Dog
The surprising journey of widowhood. Part of the widowed journey, as I experience it, is having to face new things. Some new things contain the kind of surprises you don’t want to receive. For example, if your partner always took the dog to vet, then the first vet visit on your own might surprise you […]
90 Days
It’s been ninety days without you. When this post publishes it will be exactly 90 days since I walked you to the white van parked in our driveway to see you off. The night was cool, being after midnight, and the kind ushers walked in slow motion as they made their way step by careful […]
Til Death Do Us Part . . . or not
The irony of pledging our lives to one another on Independence Day revealed itself slowly over the years. A powerful love awakened what felt like super powers. Of course we would live a lifetime together, no matter the bets of some who thought otherwise. Dan enjoyed highlighting the benefits of choosing July 4th to marry: […]