. . . ASHES. . . and something more. What an odd circumstance when, after my father died and was cremated, that no one seemed to know where his ashes were located! A family member, wanting to keep them away from another family member, gave them to a friend of my dad’s who was said […]
Widowed
The Shape of Her in Her
Photos my own this week from the shores of Lake Geneva One of my favourite writing prompts in Megan Devine’s 30-day Writing Your Grief programme comes on Day 28. So close to the end, when much excavation of one’s ever-changing emotions, thoughts, feelings and sensations has already gone on. The prompt starts with a brief […]
The Grief Guard
Terrible things happen to people every single day but not everyone experiences terrible things. Some get to float through life without fear, loss or a bigger view of the world. Lucky maybe? However, true gratitude often comes from true grief. There’s a mindset now that any inconvenience is a huge struggle and so many are […]
WHO AM I?
WHO AM I NOW? In talking with an old friend yesterday—recently widowed and in that oh-so-new-place of figuring out life without them—I found myself musing about who I am at mile marker 314 days. It’s hard not to compare life “then” with life “now”. The feeling, no longer new but never normal, of something missing; […]
Sometimes…
Sometimes when I come to reflect on what to write about each week, I just know. I know – yes – THIS is the incident, the thought, the feeling, the reflection, the conversation, the insight, the piece of wisdom that LANDED in my marrow. THIS is the poem, the quote, the text. THIS is the […]
Stains of the Heart
There have been moments this week where I’ve caught myself thinking more and more about the loss of my dad and Clayton. I had a friend from work pass away after being in the hospital. All I could think about was what his surviving wife was going through. Another coworker sadly lost his mother and […]
In the Spring of 2020
. . . you were still here suffering with constant pain, it was love that kept you going. No one was ready to say goodbye. In the Spring of 2021 You arranged for me to receive from you a pink robe on Valentine’s Day —actually two. I can’t remember what I gave to […]
Creating the Community I Crave
Image from Soaring Spirits – Gordon, Michelle and me – Camp Widow, Toronto, November 2018 Back in the early days of widowing, as I heard the likes of Megan Devine talk about the importance of community, my reaction was something along the lines of “Hrrrmph”. I didn’t get it. I didn’t quite see how hanging […]
Sharing A Smile
I miss his smile. It was a gift he had share with me to hold in my memories. It’s been almost four years since I saw him smile in person. Sometimes I forget to remember those moments because he was so sick near the end that he didn’t have the energy to smile. It wouldn’t […]
The World’s Loss
Sometimes I get sad for other people’s loss of Boris. Not only people he knew but also the people who never got to meet him. At times this grief feels worse than my own even though I know it isn’t. Boris was so many things to so many people. And then there are the people […]
WHAT IF . . .
. . . we keep telling our love stories? There is a beauty in love stories. We see it in rom-com’s like When Harry Met Sally. We see it in Marvel Films like WandaVision. Heck! we even see it in the nature stories of whale families and how they care for each other! Love, in […]
Throwing out decades of memories
Main image by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash Our house has long needed a lick of paint, new staining and varnish on wooden floors and stairs, mouldy patches on bathroom ceilings scraped off and refreshed with white paint, new lights/lighting, new curtains sewn so that they match better with whatever is around… And that […]