I’m not really one for New Years resolutions however at the start of every year, I do like to put a lot of thought into setting myself a goal for the coming twelve months. When Dan died from depression in July 2013, leaving me as a young, newly-wedded widow, my focus turned to just surviving. That first five or six months was a blur and when…
Widowed
The Last Straggler
It was still dark when I stepped outside the Holiday Inn near the Los Angeles airport where the airline had been forced to put me up after a snarl of delays and cancellations across the country left me unable to make my connection back to Hawaii. It was the final leg in a long day and a half of travel and I felt bleary and grungy, having spent the…
New – A Year in Review
One year ago, everything was new. I was newly widowed, and a new single parent. There were new emotions, new challenges, and new triggers around every corner. I had heard about Camp Widow, and I had a new idea. I would peek out of my armored shell of grief, and go against the grain of my own personality. I would force myself to be a new…
Hopefully, in Time
So another Christmas has passed us by, my third without my husband. Initially, I felt like this one was going to be a bit easier than my past two, and I guess in some ways it was. However despite enjoying the festive build-up, the Christmas parties, house-decorating and gift-buying, the heaviness in my heart on Christmas day was unavoidable. A…
Sadness and Sugarplums
Here’s the sucky thing about being widowed. Well, one of the many sucky things about it anyway. Holidays will always be hard. They will always be tarnished with lost love and that empty chair at the table. There is just no getting around it, and it doesn’t matter how long it’s been. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this year – my third since Mike…
Into the Woods, Part 2
I think I may be starting to sound like a broken record with all of my “nature” posts, but regardless, I’m writing about it again. I’m even stealing the title of Sarah’s post on Sunday, and rolling with it. Seeing as how we’ve both written about something we did together, I see no shame in making a “Part 2” It feels odd,…
Into the Woods
Patience. I’m trying my hardest to have some lately… with myself, with change, with pain. It’s easier said than done. I am beginning to realize that it is going to take a lot longer to adjust to moving somewhere so far away than I’d imagined. Especially while carrying my grief on my back wherever I go. No matter how much good there is…
A Fear I Can’t Ignore
I’m going to let you in on a little secret… one that I’m not even sure I’ve fully admitted to myself. I’m scared. My best friend is due to have her first baby in less than five weeks and I’m starting to feel absolutely petrified about it. Amidst all the excitement and happiness over the past few months that has surrounded her pregnancy,…
Far From Ideal
“Far from ideal”…just one phrase uttered by my friend Margaret during a recent conversation about the state of our lives well into year three of losing our husbands. It caught my ear because indeed…so much of our world now is far from ideal. We realized too during that conversation that our lives with our husbands were probably not…
Falling Water
There exists in Cuyahoga Valley National Park a small waterfall called “Blue Hen Falls”. For thousands of years, this ripple of water has been flowing over a sandstone ledge in 3 ribbons, proceeding on its course towards the Cuyahoga River. Spring Creek, it’s namesake being a natural seep about 1000 yards upstream, isn’t a…
Metaphors for Grief in Nature
I’m always astounded at the things nature teaches me about life and grief. This week I went for a walk at a park near my new house. It’s a wilderness park, with one trail that makes a 2 mile circle surrounding a prairie. For years, this area was farmland, and the park system has now preserved it to allow the landscape to fully restore back to it’s…
An Empty Ritual
My Christmas tree is up. It nearly didn’t happen. Again. I had that moment where I didn’t see the point, with the same questions I’ve asked myself for the preview two years since he passed. I thought ‘I live alone, I won’t even be here on Christmas day – I’ll be at my sister’s house. It’s so depressing to decorate a tree on your own, why…