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…
sarah treanor
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…
A Letter to My Younger Self
Dear Younger Self, Today is the four year anniversary of that horrible day… and you are just beginning on this ride of horrors. I wish I could have been there at the beginning. From here, there is so much I can tell you about what you’ll be facing in the years ahead, and about what wondrous things will unfold, too. I wanted to take a moment to…
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…
Breaking Silence
Many of you know, in 2014 I did a year-long series of self portraits capturing my grief. During that time, I lived so deeply in sadness, pain, anger… all of the emotions we face when losing someone. There were good times too, but the large part of 2012-2015 were spent in deep connection with my own darkness, working to understand how to heal and…
The Trauma of Going Home
I’m down in Texas this weekend. It’s my first visit in almost 6 months since moving to Ohio. Drew’s little sister is graduating… or actually, just did, yesterday. I arrived here on Thursday morning and immediately felt that beautiful rush of comfort of the familiar. The old, wide oak trees, the rolling hills, the warmth of the Texas heat… it…
The Accidental Mother, Part 2
I have the ironic honor of always writing on Mother’s Day, being the Sunday writer here at Widow’s Voice. Ironic because it always forces me to evaluate my feelings about a holiday I have mostly chosen not to celebrate since my own mother died when I was young. I hate this day, or at least, I mostly always have. But this post isn’t about that.
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…
Growing Me Up
Many of you know, in my “chapter two” or whatever we’re calling it… I relocated my life from Texas to Ohio last fall, to start a new beginning with Mike and his 9 year old daughter, Shelby. This summer it will be 4 years since Drew died, and this is the first relationship I’ve been in since that horrible day in the summer of 2012. There…
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…
The Landscape of Love after Love
I’m writing you this morning from the bed of a roadside motel in West Virginia. The walls inside are all wood, the entire place looking like a big log cabin. It’s cozy feeling, with ruffled curtains, checkered blue and white bedspreads and warm corner lamps. I’ve woken up in a good mood, which I am infinitely grateful for, and hoping I can…