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On August 13, 2017, I lost the love of my life. Rick Palmer and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary one month before he died at age 63 of complications from treatments for small cell lung cancer. He was my partner and soulmate, the love I had been looking for and finally found at age 40.

Rick was a talented writer and web designer and, in 2002, we began our own web and print design business. We worked together building the business and enjoyed traveling, writing, and playing together. Our dream was to spend our golden years together doing more of the same, but in the ten months from diagnosis to death, that dream shattered.

After Rick’s death, I quickly realized that the enormity of his loss was too much for me to handle on my own, so I began grief therapy. I also began writing through my grief in a journal of feelings, thoughts, memories, and poetry. As I navigate my new life alone, I share my journey and my efforts towards creating my “new normal” on my personal blog: The Writing Widow. I’m also on Instagram, Blue Sky, and Facebook.

I've published three books about my grief journey: my poetry book, I Wanted to Grow Old With You: A Widow's First Year of Grief in Poetry, and two books of poetry and prose - A Widow's Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry - The First Year" and A Widow's Words, Year Two: Grief, Reflection, Prose, Poetry, and Hope."

I also published a memoir: "My Story: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose." All my books are available in ebook and print versions on Amazon.com.

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Recent Posts by this Author

Author Katherine Billings-Palmer

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hope and healing

A Piece of Him Inside Me

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Coping Mechanisms, Grief, Hope and Healing, Widowhood Journey
February 8, 2022February 9, 2022
One of my new favorite shows, 1883, has the characters saying some memorable lines. But a discussion about grief in the last episode left me sobbing in a way I haven’t in a while. It was that pleasure/pain kind of ...
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Relinquishing the Dead

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Coping Mechanisms, Grief, Hope and Healing, Mental Health, Widowhood Journey
January 15, 2022January 16, 2022
Author Joan Didion died in December. I’ve always enjoyed her writing, but I owe her a special debt of gratitude for her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. In it, she described the grief and pain following the death of ...
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grief knows no bounds

Grief Knows No Bounds

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Coping Mechanisms, Grief, Hope and Healing, Relationships and Dating, Widowhood Journey
December 10, 2021
Grief knows no bounds. It can be triggered when you least expect it, although most triggers are obvious and predictable. After Rick's death, I knew going into a diner, Home Depot, or Costo would be painful. I knew vacationing without ...
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peace instead of pain

Remembrances of Things Past

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Grief, Hope and Healing, Widowhood Journey
November 14, 2021November 14, 2021
The first year or two after losing Rick, every memory that popped into my mind was an emotional trigger that sometimes made me sob, and other times just brought on some quiet tears. The trick was learning to handle these ...
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Remembered Moments

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Coping Mechanisms, Grief, Hope and Healing, Relationships and Dating, Widowhood Journey
October 12, 2021October 13, 2021
I went on a date last Saturday night...it was my first date with a new man I met in an online dating app. After two years of first dates, the only thing I know for sure is that you never ...
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Grief journey

Lost Dreams and Rewritten Futures

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Hope and Healing, Widowhood Journey
September 11, 2021September 11, 2021
I was driving to an overnight visit with my two youngest grandsons. It was a beautiful summer evening and I had just had a perfect Friday - half a day of work, meeting a friend for lunch, followed by a ...
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grief journey

Grief, Year Four: Embracing Life for Both of Us

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Grief, Hope and Healing, Widowhood Journey
August 11, 2021August 12, 2021
This past week, I was up at our cottage in northern Michigan, and I joined the family at nearby Ocqueoc Falls. Rick used to make fun of the falls. When I first took him there, he kept laughing as he ...
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The “L” Word

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Grief, Hope and Healing, Relationships and Dating, Widowhood Journey
July 13, 2021
Yesterday, Rick and I would have celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. It was the third one since he’s been gone. I made it through the fog of the first one. By the second one, I had adapted to life alone, ...
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grief-happiness

A Widow in Pursuit of Happiness

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Grief, Hope and Healing, Relationships and Dating, Widowhood Journey
May 26, 2021May 26, 2021
I was at a four-day writers’ conference this past weekend. It was supposed to be on a lake in northern Michigan, but due to COVID, it was on Zoom. That’s a lot of screen time, but it was worth it. ...
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grief journey

The Heartbreak of a New Beginning

by Katherine Billings-Palmer in Grief, Hope and Healing, Widowhood Journey
May 6, 2021May 6, 2021
I met a man. I like him a lot. He’s intelligent, funny, kind, interesting, and philosophical - all traits I desire in a partner. He says he likes me a lot, too - and he shows it in many ways. ...
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