Driving to the supermarket last week I had the overwhelming feeling that this baby is very much an addition to our family. To Ian and I’s family. Although in no way is the baby a replacement for Ian, as the pregnancy progresses it feels like Ian is less distant now. There is a feeling of completeness, not end, not ‘over it’, but very much…
aussie widow
Scared of the Anger
It’s been a year, nine months, one week and two days since my husband took his life and I’m only now just starting to feeling angry. Even typing that, makes me ill. I’m very much NOT ok with feeling angry. When he first died, I had a fleeting moment of thinking ‘how could he have made this decision for us, without consulting me!?’ and…
Dating in the After
For some reason, I seemed to have developed the assumption that dating would be easier this time around. God knows why. I think, maybe, I decided that after being through something so horrific, that by the time I got to the stage where I felt ready to open my heart again I would have accumulated some kind of positive ‘love karma’ and earned…
Centenary
This week in Australia and New Zealand we are leading up to the centenary of our initial engagement in the First World War at Gallipoli in Turkey, an engagement that for Australia is often considered the birth of the nation. Most of the documentaries, news reports and commemorations surrounding the anniversary are focused on the men who went away…
Until Death Do Us Part
Yesterday I was faced with another one of those big hurdles for us widowed folk – a wedding. My dear friend married the man of her dreams and began her life as a Mrs. This wasn’t my ‘first’ wedding as a widow, my best friend got married three week’s after Dan’s death. While I attended that event, wore my bridesmaid dress and…
A Beautiful Dream
I was so happy in my marriage that when I look back and remember that time, it almost seems surreal. My incredible wedding day, filled with so much love, feels like a dream to the point where I start to wonder if it actually happened. A beautiful, delicious dream that had me walking on air for 45 days. I’d found a soul mate and we’d made the…
What’s in a Name…MKII
One of the things I really struggled with in early pregnancy was the idea of having a second boy. I really, really wanted a girl. Not because I outright didn’t want a boy, but because I had absolutely NO idea on a name. Ian and I had a girls name – Claire – agreed from our pregnancy with John, so I wanted a girl so I didn’t have to worry about…
617 Days and Counting
I reached another widow milestone this week: on Thursday Dan had been dead for 617 days. The same number of days that I was blessed to have him in my life. One year, eight months, two weeks and four days. That’s all the time we had together. I’d been dreading this moment for months. For some reason, I even have a countdown app on my phone, so…
A Time for Compassion
Like the rest of the world, I awoke to the news this week that the tragic crash of the Germanwings flight 9252 was due to a deliberate act of the co-pilot, and my heart sunk. My immediate thoughts were for the families of everyone on board – there would be so many questions, so much pain. All these beautiful, innocent lives lost in a…
A Rose by any Other Name…
Ok, “rose” isn’t exactly the first term that comes to mind when thinking of widow, but I’ll go with the literary, Shakespearian reference for this post. I could be posting on getting through the third anniversary of Ian getting sick, which coincided with his birthday on St Patrick’s Day. But much to my surprise, that anniversary passed without…
The D Word
Over the past couple of months I have been very quietly thinking about that terrifying concept of dating again. The feeling that I might like to dip my toe back in the dating pool started creeping in around late January, at my 18-month mark, and completely took me by surprise. After Dan’s death, the thought of finding another partner filled…
Doing it for Myself
As far as the ‘ups and downs’ of grief go, it’s been a pretty tough week. It started with what would have been Dan’s 36th birthday on Monday (the second since he’s been gone). Despite coming up with a plan for the day and preparing as much as I could for the inevitable roller-coaster, the rug was well and truly pulled from underneath me. I…