Time means nothing and it means everything since my husband died. My heart beats its’ rhythm. It plods and it races and jumps and bumps and shatters and breaks and leaps and is subtle and loud. All at the same time sometimes.In one month it will be one year since he died.I turned 56 two months after he died. When people ask me I always…
Widowed
It’s a matter of perspective…
A: I’ll be devastated if they don’t playB: I’m sure Mick’s more devastatedA: It’s all a matter of perspective.The Rolling Stones were due to play my city on Saturday night just gone and this was one exchange that appeared on my Facebook feed in the first 24 hours of Mick Jagger joining our ranks.My jaw was on the ground and I thought “I’m…
Creating
There are times when I start to write a post or create a new art project and I get stuck. Suddenly, every idea I have and every mark I make or word I type is wrong. Wrong, stupid, vapid, empty, annoying, pandering, arrogant, contrived. I annoy myself. I disgustmyself. I decide that I will not be able to write anything helpful. I will not be able…
Weighing the Days
Yesterday was a hard day. Exactly a week until Drew’s birthday, perhaps I don’t remember how hard it was last year… but I could swear it’s hitting me harder this year. My body seems so much more aware of the lack of his body, but also just the feeling of him in the space is far more distant now. I downplayed that first sentence… it was a…
Listen
“Listen- life is really going on, right now, around us. Do you see it? Sometimes I lose it, but if I sit still and listen, it comes back, and then I think, how funny, this is what being alive is.” -Robin MorganI need to start this blog post with apologizing.In the 5 years of being a Widow’s Voice writer, I’ve recently been failing at my Saturday…
Luck O’ The Irish
Ian loved celebrating his birthday with his friends, so last year, on his birthday, we marked the one year anniversary of him getting sick by going back to the restaurant we had to leave so quickly in 2012.Earlier this week I got a call from one his mates looking to see if I was planning to repeat the lunch for the second anniversary on St…
Loss
I was stuck for ideas the other day in art class and the teacher was trying to help me brainstorm. Make it autobiographical, he said, in his cheery 20-something voice, about the movie poster I was assigned to create.Autobiographical? I thought. Huh. Yeah. I began to sort through my life events. Lost my mom (and my dad, too, if we’re talking…
Happy
This past Saturday night, while at Camp Widow East in Tampa, Florida – I was sitting at one of the tables at the fancy banquet that Soaring Spirits throws for us during each of the camp events. I was talking to my friend Sarah (who writes in here each Sunday), whom I had been talking with in regular phone calls and online for months and months…
Things Have Changed
At the moment we are in the middle of our city’s ‘Mad March’ that consists of a motorsport carnival, an Arts and a fringe festival, concerts, other sporting events. Many of these things I used to go to, before I met Ian, and after. Last year I didn’t really want to go to anything. I think I went to one event, compared to the ‘record’ a…
That Which Is Not Here~
We spend our lives with an awareness of our physical bodies. We dress our bodies, we move our bodies. Our hands hold other’s hands. Our arms hug. Our lips meet in exquisite kisses. Our lips smile and laugh. Our eyes sparkle as we gaze upon life and our loves. Our feet dance, in rhythm or not. Physical presence is a big deal. It was very much a big…
Anam Cara
There are women who have taken care of me since Dave got sick. Just about everything I’ve learned about love and devotion I’ve learned from them. Dave’s death cut the cord keeping me upright on this planet and as I fell, fell, fell, unable to stop the falling, unable to breathe, they cradled me. In every sense of the words, cradled me. In…
Popped
There are many things I’m certain of in and of myself:I am strong.I am resilient.I am confident.I am driven.I am passionate.I am a rebel.I am a lover.I am a giver.I am a life embracer.But I must be honest.Last year, I found myself challenged.Now, I must preface that with that fact that I live for challenges. I thrive off of them.And yet, when I…