OK, maybe I am exaggerating just a tad… But last weekend, the National Conference on Widowhood gave me the opportunity to step WAAAY outside of my comfort zone. Like, Way. This shy, insecure, risk-averse widow stood in front of a whole bunch of women and revealed herself. I wanted to give these fabulous, courageous and generous widows a few…
camp widow
Peace
It’s surprising to me how much peace one can feel in the middle of a couple of hundred people. Yet that’s exactly what I felt at “Camp Widow” (love the nickname, M!). To be surrounded by so many women, and a great guy, who understand what I’m feeling before I have the words to describe it …… is very peaceful.It’s not that it was all sugar and…
The Value of a Friend (continued)….
I spent this past weekend at the first ever National Conference on Widowhood, an experience I now fondly call “Camp Widow”. I watched in awe as women from around the world met each other for the first time and talked for hours like long lost friends. I’ll never say I take my friendship with Michele for granted; having a widow friend to walk…
It’s Unimaginable
Life hasn’t turned out like I thought it would. Never in my wildest dreams would I have pictured myself standing before a room full of widows sharing with them my thoughts on finding hope in the aftermath of despair. Never. And yet here I am, and here you are, and we are here together.Unimaginable does not mean impossible. How do you apply that…
Life does sure insist on happening…
Life does sure insist on happening. This weekend, while I am in San Diego for the Conference, my daughter will be putting herself on a plane for musical theater camp. She will take a plane to Newark, and then a bus. We have reviewed the itinerary maybe one hundred times. She is really tired of me. “Do you have your ticket? The confirmation number…
New Adventures
This is a picture from my vacation last week. I’d love to tell you all that it was the most fantastic trip I’ve ever been on. That, however, would be a lie. It was mostly …. not fun. It was mostly ….. lonely. It was mostly …. painful. I really, really needed Jim there. But there is no answer for that need ….. and so I move…
The Value of a Friend
For lots of reasons, but likely due to the National Conference on Widowhood this weekend, I keep thinking about my friend Michele and how different my life would be without her. She once wrote that God closed the door to Phil, but by an odd twist sent her the window that opened to me. Given the choice, she’d have slammed my window for sure… :)…
The Widow Language
This is me with our awesome Thursday girl (Nicole), and our amazing Saturday girl (Taryn). We met for sushi in Texas last January, and spent some time together talking widow. Yes, I do think there is a widow language!When you speak widow you avoid the phrase, “How are you?” Conversing in widow never requires full sentences. If tears spring up…