“Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble at any second. Then decide what to do with your time.” From “The Art of Disappearing” by Naomi Shihab Nye In my Buddhist study group, this week, we are reflecting on the fact of impermanence, specifically, these things: we are all going to die, and none of us knows when that will happen.
Widowed
Returning with New Eyes
This morning I went for a hike out on the ranch scouting my next location for a photo shoot. I started out at a particular dry creek bed. Parked the truck, walked down a shallow slope and stood a moment taking in the world around me. This was where Drew first taught me how to shoot a gun. Back when I was so terrified of them that my hands would…
Doing it for Myself
As far as the ‘ups and downs’ of grief go, it’s been a pretty tough week. It started with what would have been Dan’s 36th birthday on Monday (the second since he’s been gone). Despite coming up with a plan for the day and preparing as much as I could for the inevitable roller-coaster, the rug was well and truly pulled from underneath me. I…
In the Ring with Grief
I’m filling in for Kelley Lynn today, she will be back next week! This post was written about four years after Phil died. It’s amazing how the written words mean the same thing literally, but six years later their figurative meaning has shifted yet again.Over the past four years grief and I have reluctantly become friends. Grief is not the kind of…
Tick, Tock…
When we met, Mike was 45 and I was 31. He died at 59, when I was 44. Now I am only a few days away from my own 47th birthday. I think about this a lot these days. Getting older; being middle-aged. Being older now than Mike was when we met. And the fact that I will not share those same years with Mike that he did with me. He was so…
Wandering Wonders
I wonder if I’ll ever wake up again. Wake up to the point where I feel anything besides numbness or pain or his absence.I wonder if I’m okay or if this grief has become complicated. Lately I’ve been reading some articles that suggest that it might be. Except that I only really meet one or two of the criteria and there’s upwards of ten. So…
Doppelganger
One issue I’ve found with having a few people having died on me when they were younger is the issue of doppelgängers – people who freakishly look the same. I’ve encountered them for my stepfather as I’m out around my city. Sometimes the right shape from behind, sometimes a glimpse of a profile. But I’ve not yet encountered Ian…
Tender Touch
I awakened last night, and reached for my husband in the dark, only to find that now familiar, empty space, instead. And I remembered how I would drape my leg over his, at night, and press my stomach against his back. Sometimes, he would stir, slightly, and tell me to take my leg off of him. He said my legs were too heavy. He referred to them as…
A Little Bit of Happy and a Little Bit of Sad.
This coming Monday would have been my husband’s 36th birthday. Instead, it will be the second that I had to mark without him. All week I’ve felt the weight of my grief with such intensity. The disbelief that he’s gone. The whys, the if onlys and the its not fairs. He died in…
Five More Minutes
I want to begin this post by letting you know that I am not suicidal. I am not going to do anything to harm myself , nor would I ever. Expressing feelings and taking actions on those feelings are two different things entirely, and I know this very well, and I am very aware of this. I am saying this because I know that some of you that may be…
Blossom and Fade
I sit here at Mike’s old desk, a glass of wine by my elbow and the almost full moon shining brightly through the window, and wonder what I would be doing now were he still alive. I pause for a moment and think of our other writers here and their lives; all of our struggles, changes, decisions and thoughts in the wake of our losses. And all the…
Shape-Shifting
This confusing, weird, strange, life as a widow.I’ve stored PinkMagic for a couple of months while I’m here in Arizona, while I take a break from the road to write my book and rest a bit. While I’m here, I’m staying with my son and his wife and family, which is wonderful and I know that they’re happy to have me but…my mind….oh, my mind and…