I was stuck for ideas the other day in art class and the teacher was trying to help me brainstorm. Make it autobiographical, he said, in his cheery 20-something voice, about the movie poster I was assigned to create.Autobiographical? I thought. Huh. Yeah. I began to sort through my life events. Lost my mom (and my dad, too, if we’re talking…
widowed
Loss
Happy
This past Saturday night, while at Camp Widow East in Tampa, Florida – I was sitting at one of the tables at the fancy banquet that Soaring Spirits throws for us during each of the camp events. I was talking to my friend Sarah (who writes in here each Sunday), whom I had been talking with in regular phone calls and online for months and months…
That Which Is Not Here~
We spend our lives with an awareness of our physical bodies. We dress our bodies, we move our bodies. Our hands hold other’s hands. Our arms hug. Our lips meet in exquisite kisses. Our lips smile and laugh. Our eyes sparkle as we gaze upon life and our loves. Our feet dance, in rhythm or not. Physical presence is a big deal. It was very much a big…
Anam Cara
There are women who have taken care of me since Dave got sick. Just about everything I’ve learned about love and devotion I’ve learned from them. Dave’s death cut the cord keeping me upright on this planet and as I fell, fell, fell, unable to stop the falling, unable to breathe, they cradled me. In every sense of the words, cradled me. In…
Popped
There are many things I’m certain of in and of myself:I am strong.I am resilient.I am confident.I am driven.I am passionate.I am a rebel.I am a lover.I am a giver.I am a life embracer.But I must be honest.Last year, I found myself challenged.Now, I must preface that with that fact that I live for challenges. I thrive off of them.And yet, when I…
Four Years…
Four years since you left me.Suddenly.Violently.Bereft.Nobody could possibly begin to understand the soul connection we had. Anam Cara.We two were so closely linked….and yes, I know we are still connected.I have learnt to recognise the signs you send me.I know you are near.I know you miss nothing.I am lucky that intuition comes naturally to…
I’ve Lost My Body Connection…
I’ve lost my body connection. In the months since my dearest husband died, my body has become alien to me and I realized it fully last week when I joined a gentle stretching yoga class. My daughter was the instructor and she is, indeed, gentle in both movement of body and in manner.Maybe, possibly, the difficulty had to do with the varying…
Letters to the Future
Last week I had a blown away moment…I’m clearing through my study to try and get it in some semblance of order ready for my university studies to recommence this week. Since it’s recycling day, I figure I may as well sort through some old paperwork and textbooks and get them out of the house.So I begin to consolidate an accordion file Ian…
Clean or Dirty
Something I’ve begun to distinguish since Dave died is clean pain versus dirty pain. I can’t remember the original source of this idea, though I’ve read about the concept several different times. Clean pain is the pain we feel when we lose someone or something we love dearly. It’s the pain we naturally feel when we’re ripped from…
A Beginning in the End
A lot of us talk about various times during this horrible journey where a shift begins to happen. It’s nothing concrete or tangible, it may not even be something we can easily define… all we know is that something has changed in us and the way we view what has happened to us. That is the shift.Since the new year began, I’ve been feeling as…
Questions?
Where is…?Who put that there…?When…?Why is……the bottle of brown sauce in the crockery cupboard?Did I put it there… or did John? I don’t remember doing that… but I don’t remember seeing John in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner, either. It must have been me that put the sauce in there, but have no recollection what so ever…
…..and breathe…..
Today was school break-up day. Party Day. Unofficial last day of the school year (except for tomorrow which is clean and scrub every single thing in the classroom day). I have been counting down to this day for the past month. My class are tired. I am exhausted (and for those non-teachers who scoff, don’t until you’ve done it. I used to…