It’s been a busy week, and the highlight was a visit with my friend Margaret who flew in for a nice long weekend from her home in the Bay area. Her husband Dave, who was healthy and fit, died of a sudden, massive stroke at age 50 three months after Mike died, and she and I were put together by mutual friends and family who saw us both falling apart…
widowed suddenly
Someone’s Missing
Saturday, I attended a family ‘do’–a term used in England to denote a celebration, or important event. This was a 40th birthday party for one of Stan’s nieces, held at a Greek restaurant, with over 60 people, most of them relatives of Stan’s. Two of his sisters were there, as were two of his children. The room was filled with conversation and…
Wiping Away the Fears
For two years and nine months now… I have had one of those weird widow “things” that I have done. Or really that I haven’t done. For all of these days, weeks, months, and years… I have not cleaned the bathroom mirror. Not once. The reason for this is simple, and anyone widowed will likely understand. When I shower every morning, I get out and…
Listen
It’s just one of those nights. I have 40 billion things inside my head all at once, and every single one of them has to do with his death. I’m not upset or crying or even particularly emotional tonight. Not really. But it’s just one of those nights where my brain won’t shut off and I can’t stop thinking …. 40 billion things. But one thing more…
A Patchwork Girl
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don’t.” -Stephen King I will apologize in advance for my perhaps over-use of metaphor. But I guess that’s just how my…
A Place of Existence
For years, I have wandered outside. When I was very young, on through my teenage years, I would often times find myself on my Aunt’s cattle farm, traipsing around the back lots, playing in the creeks, or just generally exploring the land and finding interesting spots to spend time with my brother and cousins. We were always outside. We…
Climbing Off the Wheel
“Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble at any second. Then decide what to do with your time.” From “The Art of Disappearing” by Naomi Shihab Nye In my Buddhist study group, this week, we are reflecting on the fact of impermanence, specifically, these things: we are all going to die, and none of us knows when that will happen.
In the Ring with Grief
I’m filling in for Kelley Lynn today, she will be back next week! This post was written about four years after Phil died. It’s amazing how the written words mean the same thing literally, but six years later their figurative meaning has shifted yet again.Over the past four years grief and I have reluctantly become friends. Grief is not the kind of…
Tick, Tock…
When we met, Mike was 45 and I was 31. He died at 59, when I was 44. Now I am only a few days away from my own 47th birthday. I think about this a lot these days. Getting older; being middle-aged. Being older now than Mike was when we met. And the fact that I will not share those same years with Mike that he did with me. He was so…
Tender Touch
I awakened last night, and reached for my husband in the dark, only to find that now familiar, empty space, instead. And I remembered how I would drape my leg over his, at night, and press my stomach against his back. Sometimes, he would stir, slightly, and tell me to take my leg off of him. He said my legs were too heavy. He referred to them as…
Dancing Anyway
An evening out with friends to listen to my new guy’s band on the water’s edge here in Kona. Drinks, laughing, dancing. I catch myself: what am I doing here? I can’t believe how much my life has changed. I gaze out to the stars hanging over the ocean waves and mentally reach out to Mike, as I so often do. Are you out there, honey? Can…
Living Perpetually in Fear
I have built my entire life around the fear of loss. I’ve had a string of losses, in my adult life, perhaps more than most. Each loss dug deeper wounds into my heart. Each loss wove more fear into the sorrow I felt. Each loss added layers of protection to my spirit. I came to England in a flight from grief, after the loss of my sister and my…