Soaring Spirits Bloggers . . . and YOU!
Recently I read Widow’s Voice blogger Stacy Sulin’s sweet farewell blog and felt guilty when I read that for the past five years she wrote the blog every Sunday.
Oh my.
My writing rhythm is a moving target. This morning at 3:00am I realized I did not yet have the Wednesday blog written —- what day is it? —- Wednesday!
Blogging, like life, includes all the things. Computer glitches, writer’s fog, schedule challenges, system errors, widowed-brain, and the sadness that sometimes says, “I got nothin’ to say.”
The words in Staci’s goodbye remind me of the commitment it takes to be a Soaring Spirits blogger.
The person I replaced, Alison Miller https://widowsvoice.com/post/this-terrain-of-absence/ wrote for eight years, once a week, before she passed the Wednesday-baton to me—her final blog leaving a high bar to strive toward.
Life in the after is strange and weird and ill-fitting. What once was no longer is. Our physical world changes as intensely as our emotional world after our person dies. Even if our surroundings are the same, there is a person missing from those surroundings. —Alison Miller
After five years, Stacy Sulin passed the Monday-baton to our newest blogger, Emily Vielhauer, whose tender first post reminds me of the importance of this weekly ritual . . . https://widowsvoice.com/post/my-widow-mantra/
. . . and took me down the procrastination rabbit hole . . . deadline be damned!
I dove into reading all the blogs of my fellow bloggers.
In reading I found that Kelly, the only blogger I’ve met in person, is attending Camp Widow in Tampa (Yay! I’ll be there, too!); Emily took me back to that first blog post and the “where to begin” feeling, which she handled like a pro; Emma introduced me to the Grieving Brain and the physiological reasons why we miss our person(s) SO MUCH; It seems Gary and were both impacted by Staci’s post https://widowsvoice.com/post/author/ssulin/ and also share the awareness of septuagenarian journeys—surreal—yet we keep going; Victoria speaks of fear, represented by the spider, and it reminds me how our person provides balance for us, as we do for them. Moments of remembering their words….next best thing, but bittersweet nonetheless; with Bryan, I discovered the block of clay, carved by our experiences, that slowly becomes the new us;
I don’t often have time to read the other blogs, much less write one, but I am so glad today that I did. Reading the blogs and getting a sense of the writers behind them brings me to the heart of the matter. STORY.
The magic of Camp Widow is passed on through the stories. Which brings me to YOU! You who are reading this blog. You who arrive to zoom meetings, or pen-pal emails, or past blog posts, or in-person regional meetings, or Camp Widow in Tampa, San Diego, Toronto, or Australia. You are the story-tellers and the story-receivers. Every story counts.
Together, we help one another to find healing and wholeness.
KUDOS to the story-tellers, the story-receivers, and the widows and widowers who make their way through life; still missing a part of themselves and also recreating life in “the now” whatever that brings.
KUDOS to Alison, Staci, Kelly, Bryan, Victoria, Emma, Gary, Emily and the endless stream of bloggers past. To Jenny Sellers and Mary Moore Hughes who carry us bloggers when we need carrying. To Michele and the giant team of Soaring Spirits which is legion. And to YOU who are reading, and whatever brought you to this page today!
