I’ve always thought through life on a grand scale – The excitement of positive possibilities. How magical it would be to have an amazing job, a beautiful home and grow old with a true love. I guess the problem with being a big dreamer, now that Clayton has passed away, is that with big dreams […]
Widowed
The weight of time.
This past week I went with a close friend to the cemetery where her friend is buried. It was the 25th anniversary of his death by suicide. She has been a very supportive friend when Boris was receiving treatment and after his death. Though the loss of her close friend at 18 years old was […]
Crying Feels Different Now
Lately I’ve Been Thinking About Tears . . . . . . feeling them stream down my face and having the sensation that my tears are somehow different now. Rather than tears, they feel like mountain streams with inadequate dams to hold them in place. The tears come without warning and they flow in a […]
When “ex-” means alive
Something I noodle over from time to time, is the weirdness of the word “ex-“ when prefixed to another word. Like “ex-boyfriend” or “ex-lover” or “ex-wife”. The “ex-“ invariably means “alive”, and not dead at all. But sometimes, “ex-“ means well and truly dead. Anyone with a modicum of British culture (and more than a […]
Makeshift plan addendum
The blog below was written on September 24, 2018. I sure have come a long way since I wrote this blog three years ago. So much life has happened for me since this time. And, I am so very, very grateful for this. I didn’t give up. I believe life could be good again, and […]
What Do You See
All week I have had a new thought that I can’t shake so I guess I’ll ask but I know I might not get a direct answer yet. They say we are separated by a “veil” that is ever changing. I envision it’s like the whole world is covered in some strange cosmic widowed veil. […]
Covid Takes and Gives
History Will Bear Witness History will bear witness to the terrible costs of the Worldwide Pandemic known as Covid-19 in the year 2020. In tallying those costs, nothing can compare to the loss of lives: 627,039 in the USA and 4.16 million worldwide to date. Over four million people–gone. The Covid Pandemic took husbands, wives, […]
Sunrise over Chamonix after running through the night
Photos my own, taken in Chamonix, France. Around the summer solstice this year, I was invited to write piece for “Like the Wind” magazine, founded by my friends Julie & Simon Freeman. Her “ask” was to write something running-related in.connection with the Sun. We had met them on a train in Switzerland in 2012 when […]
Everything but the Kitchen Sink – take 2
I originally posted this blog April 2019. But, it merits a repost. The topic is sexual bereavement and it is very real and it need to be discussed more candidly and more often.
As widowed people we do not often discuss how our sex lives die with them. But, the truth is that this is an enormous secondary loss.
Sexual bereavement is a thing. It is very real and it profoundly affects us as we live on without the one we love. Daily, we miss the intimacy of being a couple. And, nothing, not one thing can replace this. The daily nuances that exist between two lovers. Your unspoken language. The secret words you whispered to one another. The tone he reserved for just you. The dialect of love.
As surviving spouses we miss the stolen glances. The way his adoring eyes watched me prepare a meal. The winks he sent me across the room during a dinner party. Tenderly placing my hand on his leg as he drove us some place. Walking side by side and casually reaching for his familiar hand; and, then interlocking my fingers with the man I love. Their hands. Their kiss. That place on the small of my back that only he knew. The way he gently brushed the hair out of my eyes before his lips met mine. The way I fell into his chest as he pulled me to him. All of this. Every last thing. This is the stuff we ache for. This is the stuff that I quietly grieve.
The Normally Normals
It’s been a grief goal for me to return back to “normal”. I have put into place fail-safes to reestablish pattern, predictability and self-protection. That’s normal self-preservation. Now I am starting to feel more comfortable in my day-to-day. I have realized my new “normal” has also kept me from enjoying aspects of a “normal” life. […]
The Day After
On July 25, 2008, Boris and I went to the beach. It was pretty romantic (as romantic as 17-year olds can be). We kissed and he asked me to be his girlfriend. We’d been friends for a couple of years by then. I didn’t agree to be his girlfriend until months down the road, but […]
Of Butterflies, Puppies, and the Dan Neff Dog
The surprising journey of widowhood. Part of the widowed journey, as I experience it, is having to face new things. Some new things contain the kind of surprises you don’t want to receive. For example, if your partner always took the dog to vet, then the first vet visit on your own might surprise you […]