Happy Anniversary, my love. Just a couple of kids who fell in love and were married just out of high school. Who knew we’d spend 51+ years together on this earth? A spark made it possible. The spark dimmed at times, but it never went completely out. We learned how to re-ignite it. We had […]
widowed emotions
Year Two: Taking Stock
DEFINITION OF “TAKING STOCK” : to carefully think about something in order to make a decision about what to do next 1) We need to take stock of our life now and again. 2) She took stock of her life as she passed the 2-year mark of widowhood. KN Definition & Meaning with Merriam-Webster Today […]
The Introvert in Grief
An Underground River of Loneliness A yellow phone similar to this one – the wall version – hung in my kitchen for more than twenty years. In the age of invention, the wall model could be fitted with an extra long cord that stretched through the doorway allowing dish washing, eyes on kids, and baby […]
THINKING ABOUT
BRAVERY What does it mean to be brave? Definition of bravery 1 : the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty : the quality or state of being brave : courage showing bravery under fire. As I write I am on the doorstep of the Memorial Day […]
ONE WIDOW’s ABC’s
FROM THE CAMP WIDOW EXPERIENCE A – ALLOWING myself to need help was harder to do than one might think. It allowed me to receive. B – BY the time I arrived at my second camp, it was not long before I found a familiar face and a warm hug. C – CARING for myself […]
Sadness and Joy . . .
. . . side by side: Camp Widow! It is freeing to be in a space where your sadness is welcome—embraced!—and joy sneaks past all the barriers we have created to keep it away. This is Camp Widow. It is beautiful to witness a gaggle of folks huddling in a corner, laughing their heads off, […]
WHO AM I?
WHO AM I NOW? In talking with an old friend yesterday—recently widowed and in that oh-so-new-place of figuring out life without them—I found myself musing about who I am at mile marker 314 days. It’s hard not to compare life “then” with life “now”. The feeling, no longer new but never normal, of something missing; […]
In the Spring of 2020
. . . you were still here suffering with constant pain, it was love that kept you going. No one was ready to say goodbye. In the Spring of 2021 You arranged for me to receive from you a pink robe on Valentine’s Day —actually two. I can’t remember what I gave to […]
Be Brave
Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it. Bear Grylls Experiencing loss in the time of Covid is complicated. Times like these require some amount of bravery, either conscious or unconscious, to keep going. As does widowhood. Contemplating bravery is a helpful tool in […]
Resting in the Nest of my Grief
Not much to report from Widow Neff this week. Last week’s post published on Wednesday followed by a positive PCR test arriving to me the day after. By then, I mostly felt better, but the official “symptoms” continue into today, yet another Wednesday, and just five days after the confirmed Covid test. PATIENCE is required […]
We All Know
the Mild Misery of the Common Cold Dare I go on? Or shall I put a sign up that says Closed by a Cold with images of innumerable tissues used throughout the night and thrown onto my bed, doubling for a giant trash can? “Wait!” you say. “Fever and sore throat….those are Omicron symptoms, yes?” […]
NEARING YEAR’S END
Noticing the Passing of Time Frost is something that we take notice of when it arrives to our Southern California neighborhood. Many winters come and go without so much as an icy car windshield at year’s end when many places in our hemisphere are covered in snow. It was a balmy April night when he […]