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…
death
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…
Never Far
Death is never far from my mind. That probably resonates with plenty of other widowed people, as well as some who have suffered the passing of someone close to them. This past month, a friend of mine died, far too young. But my mom’s friend died too, which was very sad and perhaps unnecessary given the particular circumstances. Another extended…
Changing the Walls
Yesterday, we painted a wall. To me, this was no ordinary wall, this was the last major wall in the downstairs of Mike’s house to change since Megan died. Now, when you look through the living room, dining and kitchen, all of it has a totally new color scheme from when she was living. Which leads me to talk about a very touchy aspect of…
Making Plans Anyway
This morning I’m sitting some fifteen feet up in the air surrounded by woods, near the northern border of Arkansas, and it seems no accident that the book I brought with me to read is titled “The Gifts of Imperfection”. A few days ago, Mike and I made the 14 hour drive down to Eureka Springs. Why? To stay in a treehouse cottage, which has always…
One Risk at a Time
This was me, back in 2009. The week Drew and I began dating, we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. It was a pivotal experience for me… and changed my beliefs in myself and how I dealt with risk and fear in my life. I have always been a cautious person, but every so often, I discovered after this day, I am able to make some pretty big leaps.
What I Can’t Tell you~
I feel compelled, now that I’ve passed the 3 year mark of my widowhood (as of April 21), to write one of those numbered lists of what helped me get through to this mark… Really, honestly, though, I couldn’t tell you how I’ve gotten here. All I can tell you is that I look in the mirror at myself and ask how the FUCK have you done this? How…
Broken Hearts Club
For the past week, I have poured myself into the creation of my new grief workshop. It’s finally getting real now. Which is scary and exciting all at the same time. The fundraiser is over, and by the end, I raised $1700 to help with the creation of all of this. Amazingly, 95% of those donations were from widowed people. None of my close non-widow…
Passion from Pain
In just 3 days my fundraiser for the Meaningful Making e-course will be complete. In the past month and a half, I have raised over double my goal to begin work on making this online workshop. It will be geared towards those grieving, with the premise that students will use a combination of creative acts and storytelling in order to express their…
“It Isn’t Just Me”
It’s less than a week until Mike and I will be flying down to Tampa for Camp Widow. It’s so surreal to think of all that has happened in a year. Life is no less complicated than it ever has been, in fact more so for me. It’s a good complicated, but that doesn’t make it easy. I was talking with another widow friend the other day about this. Like me,…
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…
What Would you do, do you Think?
Your husband dies. Or your wife. But to keep this simple, we’ll say your husband and you, the reader, can change it as needed, as you ponder the following situation…Anyways, you deal with the death and grief as best you can, going on with your life…and 5 years later, when you think you’re okay, in whatever way that means to you, you…