I love the idea that there is a time, and a season, for all things, but change has always been hard for me. I like sameness, actually I used to thrive in the familiar. But the transformation that has happened in my life since Phil’s death has taught me to accept my uneasiness regarding change as par for my particular course knowing that some of…
young widow
Ghost of Art
I read one of his journals today. I read it because I sold our bed, in three hours. I had to empty out his bedside table (they went too) before the guy came to pick it up.Later, as I try to decide where a mattress on a floor would look best, in MY room, I get side tracked and sift through the box of stuff from the bedside tables. I sit down, pick…
Wack
You know what…..The poster has it all right! Loves not wack, even life isn’t (though it has its glimpses). But death, death I’m pretty certain is wack.Death didn’t take Michael out of pain or take him to a better place…he had all of that here, and at 22 ,I’m pretty sure he wanted to live down here with me a tad longer. I don’t think I’ll ever…
still?
I was asked yesterday how Jeff died. I am often able to tell the awful tale involving the screams, the CPR in the parking lot and the confusion of two little ones without flinching or crying. It is now just regurgitated information that I have been required to tell so many times that I think I could tell it in my sleep. But there is one part of the…
It Only Takes ….
…. a moment. One teeny tiny moment …. to change your world. To destroy your world as you know it. To make you feel as if you will drop dead. Just one moment.I have been trying and trying to upload a picture for the top of this entry, but I’m in a hotel and the computer won’t let me upload pics. So I will do my best to leave the web site so…
The Value of a Friend (Part Five thousand and two…)
I recently attended the Soaring Spirits annual board retreat. Each year the board members get together in the same place to brainstorm ideas for the foundation, establish our annual goals, reestablish our focus for the year and just “be together”. Our board meets regularly, once a month, but our meetings are held via Skype because four of us…
The Widow Card Part 2
I got a traffic ticket a few months ago. Should have hopped out of the car immediately waving my husband’s death certificate. (There is a copy in my computer case, not sure why I leave it there or how it even got there) Instead, I sat in the car, feeling guilty about even thinking about using the widow card… to get out of something that was…
the best before date
As a widow, when does our license to actively grieve expire? Is there a time limit to our sadness? An event that signals the end of our foray into melancholy remembering? An experience that renders the act of longing for our spouse void? As I drag myself along this road of the widowed person, I know that I am not done. Almost three years and I…
Life is Messy ….
…… I originally wrote this post 4 months after Jim died ….. exactly one month before what would have been our 25th anniversary. What. Would. Have. Been. So very many “what would have beens’ over the past 3 years. Anyway, I was looking through some of my older posts and thought I’d share this one with you.I have heard it said that if you…
We Scare the Hell Out of People
Widowed people are scary. Who knew? I’ve noticed it in the past 5 years and it took me a while to figure it out. Our tragedy makes people uncomfortable in a way that is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it. But it’s true. I think it is more than just not knowing what to say to us, or thinking we might cry suddenly. I think we scare…
The Spot
Phil was on his way to this trail head on the day he died. He left home around five thirty on a summer evening in August, and I got a phone call from a witness of the accident that took his life thirty minutes later. Somehow that trip to get to my husband’s side is burned into my memory in a way that other moments from that time are not.Five years…
I Will …
The “Tired” post now has 35 comments. The last time I got almost that many comments was on April 13, 2009. Three days before Art died. This post read… —– They told me to bring the kids in. They told me to bring the kids in. It’s over and I, I, I just …. I feel nothing.The hardest part about this… No wait, the right now hardest part…