I watched a documentary last night about Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Pretty heavy watching, you might think, and you’d be right for so many reasons. My husband and I shared a love for American history and traveled to so many National Parks over the 4 years we traveled as Happily Homeless. Little Bighorn in Montana was a powerful…
Widowed
June
I’ve been trying to delay the onset of June. For example, I spent a couple of weeks writing appointments in the wrong week of May; a couple of weeks early. But the calendar has flipped, and it’s my month of anniversaries. June 4, marks Ian and I’s third wedding anniversary. The 11th will be 5 years since we first met. The 14th is his…
Fear
I was leaving the house yesterday when I realized, with amazement, that I wasn’t filled with dread at leaving my cats and house unattended. After Dave died, I would leave the house and immediately my mind would fill with images of the house burning down in my absence, the cats unable to escape the fiery death trap. I would think “I should just…
Walking Alone Together
I’m writing today to you from Hawaii. I came out for a few weeks to visit a friend on Oahu. This is the longest trip I’ve ever taken away from home since he died, and the first real vacation I’ve taken without him or his family being with me. Leaving the shelter of home has always made me a little antsy, but now instead of just the usual…
Empty Fury
I’m sure we’ve all been told that ‘anger’ is one of the phases of grief (coincidently, Stephanie wrote about these on Thursday). I say ‘phases’ instead of ‘stages’ because, in my experience, it’s not a linear process where you graduate from one emotion to the next. Instead, it’s been a messy, complicated jumble that throws us back and…
Death and Life
There was a moment when life was just life, and death was a stranger I knew nothing about. There was a fragment when weekends were just weekends, filled with friends and movies and dinner parties and couples hanging out together. There was a glimpse when laughter was just laughter, and not laughter poisoned with pain and loss. There was a…
What grief is
Most people have heard about the so-called five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – modeled by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. Even then, she clarified that these are not the only emotions felt during the grieving process, nor do they always appear in this order. It is now…
It’s Only Love. Or Grief. Or Love.
I’m near the end of the first month in the second year since my husband Chuck died. The nights and the days blend one into the other. When people ask me how I’m doing, I ask them in return if they want to hear the polite answer or the real answer. That’s pretty polite of me to ask that of them, isn’t it? I’ve run out of words to describe how…
Routnine. Junior Edition
I’ve written before about how my personal routines went out the window after Ian died. John was only 13 months when Ian got sick, and 16 months when he died. Getting him into a bedtime routine, let alone to going down at a regular time just never got re-established after the initial “everything gone haywire” period. We both developed bad…
Three Years
On June 4, it will have been 3 years since Dave died. On June 5, barring any complications with inspections, I will close on a new house. A sweet little pale yellow 1940s Cape Cod in an incredible neighborhood with a big backyard. On June 10, I should be all moved in. Deciding to move, finding a home and having my offer accepted in a really tough…
I Am Not What Happened to Me
A week ago, I had a really big moment. It was defined the by a very simple difference in word choice. It was not something anyone else would have noticed or defined as big – unless of course you yourself are widowed perhaps. While at the gym, one of the other girls in class asked if I was married and had kids. And I said – in this effortless,…
Back to Basics
It still shocks me how totally ignorant I was about the grieving process before having to go through it myself. I’ve been at this for ten months, as of today, and I still don’t really understand it. All I know is one minute I can be laughing at a joke; or smiling at strangers as I walk down the street; or excitedly making plans for a holiday; or…