Yesterday was one of the most beautiful and hope-filled days I have been a part of since I began this entire widowed journey. We were in the woods, standing tall in the trees, three widowed people and a little girl who lost her mother. The setting itself was magic, and made even more-so when we heard of the significance of that place. For our…
bereavement
My Birthday Victory Lap
This past week was my birthday. I turned 34. It might be the first time in my life I don’t really seem to have any particular feeling about turning an age. Usually I have a feeling of either excitement or resentment towards a new age. When I hit 30, I was so gloriously ready to leave my 20’s behind because they were, with the exception of…
Even Without Me
Four years, 3 months, and two days after you died, I walked under a blanket of oak and beech trees. The air was cool and crisp, the leaves still shining from a gentle rain… holding drips ransom until the wind blows them loose with a whisper. We were in the city, he and I, but all the world around us was quiet up on that wooded hill. As we…
The Springtime of my Heart
The crocus is a flower that blooms in early spring here in Ohio. So early in fact that it’s one of the first glimpses of spring you will see peeking through the colorless shell of winter. Year after year, these vibrant beauties bring with them the first moments of hope towards spring coming. Today as I am reflecting back, and as the seasons are…
I Don’t Want it Today.
I hit a wall yesterday. Majorly. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve gotten serious anxiety to the point that I could barely hold it together. In fact, the last time I can remember having this feeling was that rainy night – which I wrote about here – when Mike and I drove the moving truck across the Texas state line on our way to…
The Winds of You
This past week, I dug up all my old journals from boxes and drawers to photograph for my grief e-course I am building. In the course, we will spend a week writing about our grief, and so I decided to go back through my own journals to look for examples of some of the raw emotions I have captured since this journey began. One of the things we talk…
Rebuilding Together
Our awesome Friday writer, Kelley Lynn, is having some technical difficulties today while attending Camp Widow West, so she’s asked me to write something in her place. I didn’t hesitate to help her out, even though I have other work to be writing on this morning that I’m actually a bit behind schedule on! Now, this got me thinking about the…
Wandering Thoughts of the Moment~
Is it progress, in grief, when you realize that, fuck it looks like I’m going to live after all? When you realize that you must create a life because you’re still alive, even if your wish is to not be alive, because you’re so done with the whole damn missing business? But you are alive and, therefore, practical shit is required, so you make up…
Sharing Grief and Taking Steps
A lot has been going on this past week. Most notably, birthdays. I wrote last week about Shelby’s birthday and all the emotions it brought up for me. I don’t think it is any coincidence that my mom’s birthday was just a week after Mike’s daughter’s. And thusly, as happens most years, emotions are high. For years now, I have been…
Valentine’s for all Kinds
So this is my first Valentine’s Day since Drew died that I am celebrating with a man. That’s big. It’s been 3 years now. In those years since he died, I have celebrated with my best friend. Each year, I drove up to Dallas and we would go out somewhere nice, me and her, and sometimes her Mom and another girlfriend or two. Together we would…
One More Phone Call, Please?
Sometimes the tears sneak up on you. Sometimes you are just going about your morning, having a cup of coffee, watching the news, having no thoughts in particular to the past or about missing anyone… and suddenly something goes right into that wound and touches it. Touches the loss in a way that makes you erupt in tears. This very thing happened…
Metaphors for Grief in Nature
I’m always astounded at the things nature teaches me about life and grief. This week I went for a walk at a park near my new house. It’s a wilderness park, with one trail that makes a 2 mile circle surrounding a prairie. For years, this area was farmland, and the park system has now preserved it to allow the landscape to fully restore back to it’s…