Said no widowed parent ever!!! 😂
This week I am traveling with our kids for their spring break…🛫 Ay Dios mío!!! I’m super nervexcited! 🚘
I will report back after the trip with our teenage boy and teenage girl, doing things they have never done before. 🚵🏼♀️ Like hiking a lot, hiking inside a river through a canyon, bicycling and staying in a ranch away from civilization… My urban, city kids… Sometimes I wonder about myself! 🤦🏻♀️
So, since I’m otherwise trying to enjoy life in the Wild Wild Southwest, I am sharing with you my first and only social media post about his death.
Social media is 
something I’ve decided to carefully dip my toes back into little by little, but when my husband died, I couldn’t write anything. No Facebook announcement or Insta post. No journaling. No documenting my feelings. Nada.
My first post was August 30th, 2024 – National Grief Awareness Day.
According to ChatGPT, that is 8.9 months after he died. Then, I was barely feeling like the shock was lifting off of me, literally like this dense but ethereal veil of surrealness was making way to the permanence of his absence.
Posted August 30th, 2024
Today is #nationalgriefawarenessday.
Be forewarned, this post is long and vulnerable.
About #grief, #grace, and #gratitude. 🧘🏻♀️
On December 3, 2023, my beautiful husband, Horace Holmes, most awesome father to our children and wonderful human, died… transitioned. His body rested and his soul met His Creator. We were left on this earth to live life without him, shocked, confused… Why would we even want to? What is the point?
Our lives were so intertwined that not having him makes no sense. The grief is heavy, crushing, and at times paralyzing. Our hearts are broken, dreams shattered, and our reality dismembered. Yet we get up every morning and put a smile on our faces, most days, to honor the bravest, funniest, and most wonderful human we could have asked for as a partner in crime, father, and friend.
Next Tuesday will be 9 months since I have talked to him, hugged him, or kissed his beautiful face, and my heart aches, loves, and misses him every moment of every day. That is my reality…
And we keep moving forward, one very small, slow, hopeful step at a time.
Kids still need to be fed, taken to school and activities. Work needs to be done. The house cleaned. Laundry and bills pile up. You get it.
Life keeps moving when it feels like ours is suspended, paused, with no option to rewind or fast-forward.
🖤 What I am learning about Grief
It is a holistic injury to one’s mind, body, and soul. It is sneaky and shows up like an uninvited and unwelcomed guest. It is debilitating. It feels like crawling through the muddiest pit while every muscle and bone in your body has been beaten and broken… like a whale that keeps jumping on you, pushing you down when you are trying to come up for air after months of swimming in an ocean of fear, anger, uncertainty, confusion, and anxiety.
It’s surviving.
And I am also learning there is no fast-forward button, no “getting over it” or “fixing it.” I’ve accepted that grief will now be a part of the rest of our lives, and that, like the uninvited guest it is, I have to little by little let it grow on me. If we are going to walk side by side for the rest of our lives, we might as well start making peace and finding the lessons and beauty in each other.
A lifelong process… it feels overwhelming.
Grief comes to us all in many forms: loss of a loved one, broken relationships, unfulfilled dreams. That is one thing we share, and one thing we can keep in mind when interacting with others, most everyone is mourning someone or something.
Be kind. Extend grace. Offer compassion.
🩵 What I am learning about Grace
God’s grace is enough. I don’t know where I would be without it. In spite of my anger, my questioning, and my doubts, His grace continues to sustain and strengthen me.
Parenting grieving children while I am grieving the love of my life is the toughest challenge I now face every day. But I trust that He is a father to the fatherless and will meet me when I need His wisdom most.
I am grateful for the grace offered to me by so many who have come to support and help, who text and write, call and send, without expectations. I am grateful for those in my life who remind me to be kind to myself and give myself grace, that I am doing the very best I can given these really awful circumstances, because I constantly feel overwhelmed and the littlest things seem huge.
I recognize the grace of strangers who, not knowing what I am walking through, are kind, helpful, and compassionate.
💛 What I am learning about Gratitude
It is an intentional choice most times, to find things to be grateful for, and I have many.
I am grateful for FAMILY, FRIENDS, FRIENDS THAT ARE LIKE FAMILY, CHURCH FAMILY, WORK FAMILIES, SCHOOL COMMUNITY, NEIGHBORS, GRIEF THERAPISTS, COUNSELORS, AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS who have covered us with acts of love, help, and support.
It is still the hardest thing for me, to accept and ask for help, but I am working on it because I need it. Sometimes I don’t know exactly what we need, so thank you to those who see a need and just do it.
Thank you to the many who have sent flowers, cards, gift cards, money, donated to the account, made meals, taken us out to fun activities, and so much more. My heart is forever grateful.
Former me would write a thank you note to each of you. Unfortunately, I don’t have the capacity right now. But please know that your acts of kindness have not gone unnoticed, and I look forward to the time when we can pay it forward.
For all these expressions of love and so much more, THANK YOU SO MUCH.🙏🏽
Most importantly, I continue to learn that grief, grace, and gratitude can coexist within me.
Honestly, I am learning to see them as three very different companions that walk alongside me with very different purposes, yet somehow work together in their own way in our healing process.
Someone said that grief is the price we pay for love. 😢
Horace, Chico, baby, daddy… you are loved beyond measure and missed even more.💔
Posted August 30th, 2024.
Hasta la próxima! Until next week
Peace.
