It’s been a year, nine months, one week and two days since my husband took his life and I’m only now just starting to feeling angry. Even typing that, makes me ill. I’m very much NOT ok with feeling angry. When he first died, I had a fleeting moment of thinking ‘how could he have made this decision for us, without consulting me!?’ and…
young widow
Carrying the Grief Ahead
I’ve had little time to think in the past few days. I came down for the weekend to the beach a few hours south of where I live, with a bunch of friends. Like everything in this After Life, even the most ordinary stuff – like a beach trip – has significance and can feel heavy. I woke this morning early to write this – all my friends still dozing…
Dating in the After
For some reason, I seemed to have developed the assumption that dating would be easier this time around. God knows why. I think, maybe, I decided that after being through something so horrific, that by the time I got to the stage where I felt ready to open my heart again I would have accumulated some kind of positive ‘love karma’ and earned…
Complex Joy
I struggle tonight with what to write here. Not because I have no words for my pain… but because lately, I have been… happy. And I am struggling to write about that. Lately, my new life has become one I genuinely love. It may not be the life I had with him – but it is rich and full… and to be completely honest, it is actually far richer and…
Until Death Do Us Part
Yesterday I was faced with another one of those big hurdles for us widowed folk – a wedding. My dear friend married the man of her dreams and began her life as a Mrs. This wasn’t my ‘first’ wedding as a widow, my best friend got married three week’s after Dan’s death. While I attended that event, wore my bridesmaid dress and…
A Beautiful Dream
I was so happy in my marriage that when I look back and remember that time, it almost seems surreal. My incredible wedding day, filled with so much love, feels like a dream to the point where I start to wonder if it actually happened. A beautiful, delicious dream that had me walking on air for 45 days. I’d found a soul mate and we’d made the…
Into the Unknown
Along with being a writer, many of you know that I’m an artist. You may also know, as I’ve sometimes shared here, that I’ve been working on a photographic series for the past year all about my journey through grief. What began as just a small idea, to take a self portrait every week and share it on my blog, has snowballed into something of a…
617 Days and Counting
I reached another widow milestone this week: on Thursday Dan had been dead for 617 days. The same number of days that I was blessed to have him in my life. One year, eight months, two weeks and four days. That’s all the time we had together. I’d been dreading this moment for months. For some reason, I even have a countdown app on my phone, so…
Birthdays and Beginnings
Today was my fiance’s birthday. The third year without him here. You always think it’s going to get easier. And you never really have any clue how it’s going to hit you. That’s no mystery to me. I’ve been dealing with the milestone of my mom’s birthday for over 20 years now since she died… and some years are just harder than others, for no real…
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…
The D Word
Over the past couple of months I have been very quietly thinking about that terrifying concept of dating again. The feeling that I might like to dip my toe back in the dating pool started creeping in around late January, at my 18-month mark, and completely took me by surprise. After Dan’s death, the thought of finding another partner filled…
Returning with New Eyes
This morning I went for a hike out on the ranch scouting my next location for a photo shoot. I started out at a particular dry creek bed. Parked the truck, walked down a shallow slope and stood a moment taking in the world around me. This was where Drew first taught me how to shoot a gun. Back when I was so terrified of them that my hands would…