In the past (almost) two years since my husband died, I’ve been able to negotiate time off work for all the big milestones: his birthday, our wedding anniversary, his death anniversary and even my birthday. This helped take the pressure of these challenging emotionally-charged days and let me focus on self-care, rest and just basically doing…
young widow
What About Don?
It is now 3 years and almost 11 months (next week)since my beautiful husband left for work and never came home. In that time, I have (and still do) been to grief counseling weekly, tried many different widowed support groups, become a member of several online and in-person groups for widowed people, found support through Soaring Spirits and have…
The Musician: Part I
I’m going to tell you a story. It is an intensely personal one; one I haven’t felt open to sharing until now. But it has persisted at knocking at my brain, and I finally feel ready to let it out. So here goes. And since it is so long for a blog, I will be dividing it into several parts. The Musician: Part I Life after death is a…
Letting Go of my Dream, Making Way for the New
For a long time after Dan died, I had a ritual of talking to him each night about my day. It helped me feel close to him, like he was still part of my life. My grief counsellor thought it was a healthy and helpful way of maintaining a relationship with him and it bought me a lot of comfort. I realised this week that at some point, this nightly…
Oh Happy Day
Something really awesome happened this week. A very dear friend found out she was pregnant and rather than feel that expected pang of grief that had become standard when I hear of someone else’s ‘happy life announcement’, my first thought was how wonderfully excited I was for her. This is huge you guys! For 22 months now, I’ve had…
A Day to Celebrate Love
When my husband died, I was still in the process of integrating in to his ‘before life’ and forming connections with his friends. We lived in Brisbane and he was from Sydney, so most of his close friends weren’t local and we therefore didn’t get to hang out with them regularly. I knew they were wonderful people though, lots of fun, loyal…
Things in Common
This might sound kind of silly or stupid or not at all important in the grand scheme of things related to losing one’s life partner to death – but just bear with me, if you don’t mind. It’s how I’ve been feeling lately, and I feel the need to get these thoughts out. There are a lot of things that my husband and I had in common. A lot of things.
Our Old Lives
“I want my old life back.” I’ve heard a lot of widowed people say that, as I have, and continue to, some days. I miss a lot of little things about being married to Mike. It was a comfortable, familiar life, after nearly 14 years of marriage. I can still hear him shuffling across the tile floors, whistling. The refrigerator door opening and…
My Two Mother’s Day
I have struggled with Mother’s Day all my life. I lost my own mother when I was nine, many of you know. I don’t really remember my father knowing what to do with that day anymore afterwards. We had no other family around to celebrate, and so it just kind of became a non-holiday in our house. I sometimes wish we had continued to make it about her -…
Writer’s Block
NOTE: I wanted to start my post this week by thanking everyone who left such lovely and supportive messages on my last piece – Scared of the Anger. To receive your support after allowing myself to be so vulnerable really warmed my heart. I love our widowed community! — At every week’s end, I sit down to write this blog and sometimes…
Forgetting the Pieces
Tonight is opening night of the theater show at Adelphi University that I have been directing and writing for the past month. I am unbelievably proud of this show, it is hilarious and even poignant in parts, and of course I am missing my husband like mad right now. I want him here for this. I want him to be standing there after the first show ends,…
Stumbling Proudly
I’ve been feeling the strains of beginning anew lately. Let’s face it – starting to date someone is always messy. New person, new energy, new triggers and sensitivities. But being widowed makes it even trickier. After almost 3 years without a man by my side… I am a completely different person than who I was with Drew. I am far more independent. I…