Fire season in California means updating the emergency backpack in the car. Among the various obvious items I have in it, I also have items for my “elderly” parents – particularly for my Mom’s health needs. We live 8 blocks away from each other, and the times we have had to evacuate, we evacuate together. […]
Widowed
What is a Bad*ss Widowed Person Anyway?
“Badass” (often stylized with an asterisk, like “bad*ss”) is an informal term referring to someone, typically a woman in recent contexts, who is tough, formidable, and indomitable, often in the face of adversity or to challenge norms. (AI Dictionary) What qualifies a widowed person as a bad*ss? A Bad*ss Widowed Person discerns when […]
Ready to Let Go of Tangible Reflections of their Love
Lynn was big on having (over the counter) meds on hand – allergy, flu, tummy ache, headache, etc. She had them organized in plastic bags that she carefully labeled with what they were for. I have struggled all these years with clutter cleaning, getting-rid-of, holding onto things until I am ready to let them go, […]
After the Major Transition of Loss
Life Brings Other Transitions I joined the Widow’s Voice team about two months into my loss. Each writer (one for each day of the week) writes about whatever is relevant in their life that week. For about two months now, I have been in a state of transition. Preparing my home for a tenant involved […]
Magical Powers
Today I opened an assignment one of my kids participated in for school. The question posed to these middle schoolers was: If you had to choose one magic power for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why would you choose this power? This assignment was completed on a discussion board of sorts, […]
Advice for the newly widowed …
I started writing here at Widow’s Voice as part of my own journey in this unfortunate “club”. But I also write so that other widowed people may stumble on these ramblings and potentially find some sort of solace or help or at least know that they’re not alone in what they’re going through (even though […]
Holding Up a Mirror
To Things Previously Unseen FILM AS MEDICINE I discovered something new… when watching a favorite film recently. Its title is perfect—The Meddler, with Susan Sarandon—but the first time I watched it, I didn’t agree. The film opens directly into loneliness. Marnie, the protagonist, lies in her bed staring at the ceiling fan. A feeling hangs […]
I No Longer Need My / Our Burial Plot
My close friend, J’s, husband passed away a few years ago. Lynn and I were very close to them, and when we would go out, we all joked that people would think the “couples” in our group were actually J and I, and Lynn and my friend’s husband. We just naturally would pair off when […]
That is the roller coaster that is life.
Whoever first coined the phrase, “life is like a roller coaster”, really was spot on. It’s all there – anticipation, regret, excitement, anxiety, smooth sailing, times when you feel like you’ll fly off track, and of course, all the peaks and valleys. What goes up, must come down and what goes down goes up again. […]
Pausing in the Badlands
A Day in the Life of a BadA** Widow Tiny pause in the series for a Badass widow story. Long story, but I found out I can leave two bags of refuse each day at the dump! I went! A kind soul at the landfill office window gave me the required orange vest to […]
Faded Marks
You know those restaurants that give you sharpies to write on the walls? So, you are encouraged to leave your mark on the establishment. We have one of those places close by. For awhile it was a staple breakfast spot for our family. It was a place that Tony loved. The food was over the […]
The Premise of a Protected Sharing Space
The Container Part 2 of a series focusing on the benefits of a protected deep listening experience. It’s interesting which memories last the test of time in my brain. They are most often “stories” whose meanings remain current years later. This one lives in me from nearly 50 years ago. The concept of safe […]