Have you ever taken a few minutes or hours or days, to look completely outside your own life and how your loss affects it, and instead look into the world at large? If you have, like I have, you might find yourself staring into a great, big, never-ending, cavernous hole. Being where I currently am inside this grief tsunami, (3 years and 4…
young widow
Third Thanksgiving Lessons
Thanksgiving was easier this year. I think. It was certainly less terrifying than the first year. I still remember that first year, when we changed the tradition from being at my in-laws’ house to Drew’s aunt & uncle’s house near Houston. His aunt did assigned seats… and I was sat next to the ONLY empty chair in the whole room. Which also…
Taking the Rings Off
I passed another milestone this week, something I’ve been approaching and thinking about for a few months but have only now felt ready for – I took my wedding rings off. Well, to be more accurate, I moved them from my ring finger. I had my wedding band re-sized and it now sits on my middle finger alongside Dan’s wedding ring and a small…
The Grief Critic
In the 3 years and 4 months so far of this death tsunami I’m living since losing my husband, there is something I have learned about other people. Sometimes they suck. A lot. When it comes to living with the death of your partner or spouse, I have found that there are two kinds of people I deal with: the supporter, and the critic. Technically,…
Still, Life
week has been a whirlwind for me. I met a fellow artist who, upon seeing my photographic series on grief, asked to write this feature about it for a creative blog he writes for. That one blog post at this point has led to around 6 other blogs contacting me to share my story and the project… which has resulted in hundreds of people sharing the…
Living with the Hole
A young widow in my on-line support group, who lost her husband to depression very recently, said something this week that really got me thinking. She had one of those moments that happen in the early days where you kind of forget your partner has gone – she picked up her phone to text him about something and then it hit her hard, she could never…
That Which Doesn’t Kill Me
Yesterday was one of those days in this after life that was both incredible and heartbreaking all at once. Earlier this year, I started going to the gym and took up Crossfit to try and get into shape. I hadn’t done anything for over a year since he died and was really out of shape. Not to mention I’ve never really been athletic my entire adult…
Wish You Were Here, Uncle Dan
My usually quiet, peaceful and tidy sanctuary of a home has been turned in to a messy playground for two boisterous little boys this weekend… and I’ver never been happier to have my orderly life turned up-side-down. You see, Dan’s sister is visiting from interstate with her husband and two young boys, aged two and four, and it’s just been…
The Missing Dress Meltdown
I’m completely devastated this week. There was a horrible mixup while I was out of town last week and I discovered that a dress was accidentally thrown out. Not just a dress – but THE dress which I have been wearing in every weekly self portrait I have taken for the past 7 months (shown above). It was the main prop in this year-long series about…
What People Think
A family friend recently asked my sister how I was doing, and then seemed surprised when she replied that I’m still very sad a lot of the time and cry often. It got me thinking, if I don’t regularly remind the world that I’m missing Dan and still grieving him, will they assume I’ve ‘finished’ or was past that ‘phase’? In the months after his death…
50 Reasons that I Love Don Shepherd
On October 27, 2006, I married my forever soul-mate. On July 13, 2011, he died. It was sudden and out of nowhere, and now, 3 years later, I still struggle to understand why I have to live without him, and why he doesn’t get to live. Today is November 6, 2014. Today, Don Shepherd would have been 50 years old. But instead, he will be forever 46.
Healing Forward
I was talking to a widowed friend the other night about the whole idea of sharing this part of our life and how it changes over time. I remember well the first year after my fiance died. The first thing out of my mouth was this information. I told everyone and anyone. Friends, family, coworkers, customers, the mail man, police officers, the tech…