“Just” – What a powerful word. “Were you just partners or where you married?” The word “just” has the power to completely negate every thought, word, blog, good deed I’ve ever done in Clayton’s honor. To some, we were “just”. Clayton and I were planning on getting engaged and married. If you are planning to […]
Widowed
Untitled and Off the Cuff
As many, if not most readers will know firsthand, grief shows up in myriad ways, often unexpectedly. I have been a widower for less than one year now, but already I have melted down driving home from the grocery store, reviewing tax documents with my accountant in her office, stumbling upon a dusty file or […]
Grief~
Cover yourself with their ashes. Rake them through your hair and paint them onto your skin. Curl into a ball on the floor, Arms wrapped around your body. Let your gut release the abject pain of grief. Of sorrow. Of devastation. Wail into the forever-ness of loss. Let it envelop you and seep through you […]
On Life as Mayonnaise
Image by Daniel Costa on Unsplash This isn’t a “deep” piece … just some in-the-moment noodlings, metaphors and wonderings. Sometimes people talk of “not being able to turn mayonnaise back into its component parts”, i.e., you can’t get your whole eggs back once you’ve beaten the hell out of them, mixed them with oil and […]
Being
There is a lot happening in my life right now and that is an understatement. And, despite all the uncertainty, I am surprisingly calm. Friends of mine notice a calmness in my voice when we speak and they are right, I am very “chill” considering the enormity of the changes I am living through right […]
This Thing Named Grief~
Your loss is yours. How you grieve the death of the person you loved is on your terms. Nobody else’s. It is yours. Your timeline. Your tears. Your laughter…because laughter really is somehow tied up into the mixture of grief. There is no other timeline other than your own. There is no measuring tape for […]
Non-Stop Dead
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash In the weeks and months after Mike died, people often asked me if I dreamt of him. I barely did. He was “in my dreams” – a presence in them – but dead. I remember resenting that I knew all the time, every moment, day or night, even when […]
Almost “normal”…
I have been feeling almost like a “regular” person lately. What I mean is that I almost feel like I did before Mike died; and, for me, quite surprisingly, feeling normal doesn’t really feel normal at all. Feeling “normal”, in and of itself, is strange and unsettling for me because for so long I have […]
Regrets.
One of the most difficult feelings or experiences that I continue to have after Boris’s death is regret, and the “what ifs”. These, of course, come up when thinking about the nature of his death by suicide, but tonight, I am thinking a lot about the regrets of our life together. I regret so many […]
The Widowed Willow
When I was younger, I used to think that hardship and emotion showed a sign of weakness. That smaller, shorter, thinner-skinned Bryan was just always going to always be “Crying Bryan”. It stung to get bullied and it was tough to see others feel hurt. What I realize now is that those difficulties were toughening […]
The Goodbye Times~
Remember that old song 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover? A song that carries a very different meaning from when your Lover leaves you at the end of his/her life. I’m thinking of all the goodbyes I’ve said in my life, and how none of them were easy in any way. Goodbyes aren’t meant to […]
Re-enter, Re-emerge, Re-cover, Re-silient, Re-be, Re-re
Photo by Tolka Ulkan on Unsplash Today is a stay-in-bed-day I am feeling weepy I am feeling bereft I am missing my old life I am missing my dead loves I am missing my alive loves The dog and cat were with me for a while but even they got bored and left It’s all […]