I’ve just returned from Arkansas with Sarah, after a 14 hour drive. It is with tired eyes that I briefly write this morning, but yet, a deliriously happy heart. We planned this trip to a tree house in Eureka Springs, AR over a year ago, not long after we met. Circumstances at the time meant that we needed to book this a year in advance,…
widower
Unresolved
I have my share of insecurities, anxiety, and self-esteem issues. It’s a hell of a paradox for me to admit, on a public blog no less, that I’m insecure, but i need to get it out. For as long as I had Megan, i was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was a constant self-loathing that I wasn’t good enough to deserve her, or…
Motherless Day
My mother, daughter, and girlfriend have all lost their own mothers at a young age, all to different illnesses. Each of their moms had to stare their own mortality square in the eye, and hope for the best for their daughters. They did everything they could to love and protect their little ones in the time they had, but ultimately, they had no…
A Letter from Before, and Beyond
The time has finally come to clean up the basement of my house. When I say that, I don’t mean that I need to go through and organize some of Megan’s things. I mean that the entire basement, full of god-knows-what from Megan, myself, and Shelby needs to be perused, bit by bit. When we moved to this house (for the second time, long story) 4…
Just Do Something
For the past week, maybe two, I have been in a complete and total funk. There hasn’t been any specific trigger. No anniversaries, birthdays, significant dates to remember, or big “firsts without Megan” that have occurred. It is the same as always…I wish she were here and I miss her, but the grief of losing her is not overpowering. I…
Getting Around to It
In the spring, before Megan died, she and I decided to have a deck built on the back of our home. Nothing too fancy. It was to be a 12 foot by 12 foot square, with a new sliding glass door leading to it. We had wanted to have one on our house for years, and we were finally going to get it done. We shopped out for a few different…
A Toast to Drew
Drew, It’s been over a year since I really started getting to know the person you were. Yesterday was your birthday, and as Sarah and I had a beer, we toasted to you. We sat quietly on the couch, tapped our bottles, and watched television for the rest of the evening. I wanted to write you a note about things. There weren’t any big…
What do You Think?
So I bought a table. It was only forty dollars, and it’s a little round glass patio table. Shelby and I spent an hour or so unpackaging it, laying the parts out, and assembling it. I know this sounds completely mundane, even boring, but bear with me. This table symbolizes something. It’s not sentimental, really. It wasn’t…
Perspectives from Camp Widow
Sarah and I have just returned from Camp Widow, in Tampa. This was our third camp together, and our first time returning to Tampa, where we met last year. If you’ve read her sunday post, you know that we had great expectations of what this Camp was going to be like, and for the first few days, it seemed as if everything we had planned for…
The Simple Life
My wife suffered from a long-term illness, Cystic Fibrosis. When I say “long-term”, what I actually mean is “life-long”. There wasn’t a day that I knew her where she didn’t have some sort of symptom or complication directly due to her condition. Even after her transplant, every day was filled with special medications, dietary and…
Camp Widow Lite
It’s been over a year since I attended my first Camp Widow. In less than two weeks, Sarah and I will be travelling to Tampa again to attend this year’s installment. I’d be remiss to say that we weren’t incredibly excited. Not only do we get to see, converse, and connect with widowed friends that we don’t regularly see otherwise,…
Don’t Blink
There was once a time when I assumed that Shelby would grow up more quickly than her peers. Since she was born, she’s dealt with her mother being sick, going through major surgeries, and ultimately, dying. That a sobering thought when you’re the parent of a little girl, who really just wants to go to school, play with her toys, and do fun…