Widow's Voice

Widowed

In Her Own Words

| Posted by:

Two years ago, today, my wife wrote this. I just can’t write anything more…

Since I’m finally feeling vaguely human for the first time in almost a month, I thought I would take the opportunity to say a huge “thank you” to all family, friends, friends of friends and people who barely know me, who have rallied to support us over the last few difficult weeks.  Everything happened so quickly and aggressively that I had to accept that chemo, narcotics and goodness knows how many different antibiotics, anti-nausea and anti-anxiety drugs were a necessity to try to gain some control over what seemed like a runaway train.

Wrapping Loss in Love

| Posted by:

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash I spend a lot of my time reading about death, dying, and grieving, participating in webinars and holding space sessions with grief experts, people who’ve developed wise perspective on what it is to love, to lose, and to continue living. Apart from two moments since Mike’s death, I have […]

The Evolution of Grief part 1 (of many)

| Posted by:

Now, at 3.8 years, my grief is not just about Mike.  It’s not that I don’t miss him now, I do.  I miss him endlessly.  I say “I miss you Mike” many, many times each day.  But, now the uncertainty surrounding my future is what really gets to me.  My focus is on me and not simply surviving his death.  I have done this. I have survived Mike dying.  And, now, I am attempting to thrive in the life I am slowly and meticulously recreating from scratch without a recipe to follow.   Like all widowed people, I am rebuilding my life and discovering my new self-identity and this is a long and tedious process.   But, this process is necessary.  It is part of the evolution of grief.  Eventually, grief becomes ours –  for ourselves.  It’s not about my dead spouse anymore… it’s about me.  I am the one who is still living.  And, you are too.

From “A Gentleman in Moscow”

| Posted by:

At the behest of my new partner, I have started to read fiction again. The second of her recommendations is a book called “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

I am currently reading and enjoying it. Set in post revolutionary Russia, with lots of flashbacks to an earlier, more gilded age, the book is the story of a singular man—a count—who is placed under house arrest.

You Are Alive. You Are Whole.

| Posted by:

Anyone else reading the Outlander series? Watching it on Starz? If you haven’t, do yourself a favor. Time travel. Scotland. Relationships. Love. Passion. Trauma. Strength. Philosophy. And so much more. I’ve always been a romantic. Always. And I always will be. It’s part of who I am, and a part of me that I cherish. […]

*Sigh

| Posted by:

I’m tired.  Life without Mike is not easy.  I miss him and I feel like I do not really belong in this world without him.  This is an incredibly difficult way to exist.  I desperately yearn to feel content again.  *Sigh.  I have felt displaced for so long now that I am starting to wonder […]

Purpose

| Posted by:

What is my purpose? Why am I here? How do I help others? What can I do to make this world a better place?

These questions have been rattling around in my head more than ever over the last two years. I started to ask them when I was a child; but they became louder and resonated more inside my head in the weeks and months before Suzanne died in 2018.