The other day, my cat Sammy was lying on the couch, when my other cat Autumn jumped up next to him. She looked at Sammy for a few seconds, and then started to slowly lick him and clean him all over his face and neck. This went on for awhile. Then, she sort of kissed his nose a bit, and slowly sat herself down right next to Sammy, leaning against…
widowed memories
Hurricane Grief
Last weekend a friend who is dear to me and was dear to Mike since nearly the day we moved to Kona in 2001 had a terrible asthma attack. This young man was 11 when we met him. He is now 25, so we have seen him grow up into a young adult. He and his mom were devoted students of Mike’s for many years in martial arts, and since his father was not…
Winter’s Snow
On this bleak, grey, England winter’s day, I remember the comforting quiet of snow. Stan loved the snow. He would sit for hours, watching it. When we first began to talk to each other, he told me that he wanted to move to the Northeastern coast of England, near Whitby, where he said they had a ‘proper winter’. Proper winter? I had moved to England…
A Leaf Adrift
Somehow it ended up that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day all fell on Thursdays this year, my day to write. It is the season so I know it doesn’t really matter what day we write or what, if any, religion we practice – holiday time in general is hard for us widowed folk, but it certainly rings very clearly that I’m posting on days that…
This Day, That Tree, Marry Me
Thursday, December 18th, today, is the 9 year anniversary of the day that Don proposed marriage to me underneath the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in NYC. (You are reading this on Friday, but I’m writing it and posting it on Thursday evening, and it is right now, as I write this, my proposal anniversary.) The first Christmas after he died,…
Snow on the Mountain
We all have certain days that we dread as they swing back around the calendar. The anniversary of the day he died. Our wedding anniversary. His birthday. Maybe another special day we shared. But the holidays are among the worst. Most of us all have memories of the good times we shared, and going through it all without them…well it just sucks big…
Redecorating
Things around the house are starting to look quite a bit different from when Ian was here. Use of rooms has been shuffled. Furniture re-arranged in various rooms. I got extra kitchen cabinets installed six months after he died – a project Ian had started trying to get quotes for, but was having no luck what so ever. And now there a new paint…
The Thief
I have been here in England for almost a week, having left my ‘home’, in Indiana, where I grew up, on Tuesday night. Slowly, I am settling back into this space that Stan and I shared. I love this place, this century old cottage, with its wood floors and cabinets, its quirky, misshapen rooms, perched at the top of a hill, just a few feet from…
50 Reasons that I Love Don Shepherd
On October 27, 2006, I married my forever soul-mate. On July 13, 2011, he died. It was sudden and out of nowhere, and now, 3 years later, I still struggle to understand why I have to live without him, and why he doesn’t get to live. Today is November 6, 2014. Today, Don Shepherd would have been 50 years old. But instead, he will be forever 46.
Flight From Grief
How can I describe the strange set of circumstances that brought me here, from North America to Northern England, to this wild and expansive place, with its sloping, green hills, its mossy, stone walls, to this terrace house, built in 1889, to live the life that my husband gave to me? Over the weeks and months, you will come to know these things.
My Mind’s Eye
Sometimes I’d swear Mike is here with me. I keep getting the sensation of his presence…or maybe, my mind and heart are just working overtime to remember. To remember how it felt when he was in the room with me. The sound of his breath, his footsteps…how he looked, the familiar freckles on his forearms, his latest mustache creation, his…
The Box
I put a blue sticky note on it so the movers wouldn’t pack it. I carefully carried it to the car, hefting its astonishing weight, and placed it gently in the back seat. Alone for a few moments at the new place, I picked it up again, and carried it close to my body up to the new bedroom and found its new spot where it snugly fits. I closed the door…