I was reading an article today about grief, one of the best I’ve read in a long time. One of the things that really stuck in this article was about the platitudes people throw at you when you are grieving… mainly, “It happened for a reason”. They make the assumption that, if you became a deeper,…
grief
Making Meaning
Every now and then, something comes along that fills you to the bones with gratitude for this totally messed up, chaotic, stressful, sometimes shitty and also amazing life. Just moments ago, I finished up a live phone interview. I was invited to speak about grief and the healing power of creativity at DeathExpo – an annual online conference held…
No Pie for Me, Thanks
Somehow, my computer erased the post I’d been working on this week. I am NOT grateful for that. Grrrrr. But what I’d planned to say will probably not come as a surprise. It’s Thanksgiving again and it’s just not an easy time for us widowed folk. No matter what else lovely we find in our lives in the strange after-world, it is painful to…
A Year in Review
Thursday marks one year since Megan’s death. It amazes me how hard that is to think about. It is just another day for the rest of the world, but for me, it is bringing heightened emotions, and random relapses into heavy grief. As much as I sat and thought about what I wanted to write today, I couldn’t put together a clear line of…
Connecting the Dots
It’s been about 3 weeks since I moved to Ohio… and I finally hit my first big trigger. A few days ago, I was listening to some country music when a song called “My Texas” came on. The lyrics wandered through familiar places… Enchanted Rock, Luckenbach, and my hometown of Corpus Christi Bay. Instantly I had images flooding my mind of all the…
Stream of Life
Some weeks I feel like I’m just going to repeat myself. Because some weeks, nothing much changes. Nothing changes in how much I miss Mike, and nothing changes in how many changes I’m seeing happen in my life. I can’t stop it. Time is hurling itself forward at an increasingly rapid pace…at least, that’s how it seems, some days. After…
Inspiration
At work the other day I was chatting with one of the young ladies who works at the coffee shop across the way. I had mentioned my late husband in conversation and this girl, young enough to be my daughter, immediately expressed her sorrow for me and went on to tell me about her beloved stepfather who died five years ago. She said he had been her…
The Big Move
I’m writing this somewhere between Nashville and Louisville, on the big move from Texas to Ohio to be with Mike. We’ve been on the road since yesterday, and while today has been a far better day with more feelings of excitement, I wanted to share the really raw feelings I wrote out yesterday… because this is a very real and painful part of this…
This Ringing
I’ve noticed this past week how very loud my grief is in relation to all the other bits that make up the person of Stephanie. We all have our memories, milestones, accomplishments, regrets…all the things we did and that happened to us, combined with the sorts of personalities we are, making us the people we are now. But when you have this…
33 Years in 40 Minutes
It’s Sunday afternoon as I type this, and I’m on a 4 hour layover in Denver on my way back to Texas. I have spent the past 3 days in Portland for a conference on death and dying – where I stood up for the first time and did a presentation about my story with death and how creativity has helped me. What an experience it has been. Almost a year ago…
Always and Never
Today is one of those days that I have no idea what to write about. Not because I have nothing left to say about my husband or us or my grief. That isn’t ever the reason. No. It’s because sometimes, there are literally no words that exist , to properly explain the depths to which I miss him. Sometimes, I just get tired of saying “I miss him.” It…
A Relict Relates
In two days it will be two years and eight months since Mike died. Some days it seems like he’s been gone eternally longer than that…other days it seems like yesterday. Time is a strange thing. The other morning I was doing some organizing and I did what I do occasionally which is to check in a certain box to be sure our wedding rings and…