Dear Bret, It's been a while since I wrote you a letter, and after I made the suggestion for other widows to write letters to their late partners, I decided to do the same. You've been gone now for over ...
One of the Hope for Widows sisters used the word “bittersweet” to describe what she was feeling. I hate labels. I always have. I dislike being called “a widow.” I live with it because it is a fact. I still ...
Widows can feel like a novice in our new life… one so drastically different from what we knew. Where we once felt confident and strong, we can suddenly find ourself questioning everything. Our mind is in a fog and the ...
I opened the door on the second knock and extended a practiced, firm handshake. My hair was pulled back plainly, clothes were modest, and my face was void of both makeup and smiles. I was ready. “Keith Allen, KO Insulation” ...
A few years ago, a thought occurred to me that prompted me to sit down and think deeply. Not long after Bret ended his life, I joined multiple support groups that I had found on social media. I don't recall ...
There was a time when I had mapped out my life. I pretty much knew what I was going to do, where I was going to be and who I was going to be with. That of course, was an ...
Nothing can prepare us for what we really go through on this grief journey. No matter if our husband's death was sudden or if there was a time of anticipatory grief through a long terminal illness, or somewhere in between. ...
When I sat down with the salesman, my eyes landed on a bobblehead Spider-Man sitting next to his computer monitor. I’d spent the last hour cleaning out Alice, crying, making fun of myself for crying while sending videos to my ...
...decisions. I got entirely too used to Bret making most of the decisions for us, or at least very heavily weighing in when I had decisions to make for myself. It was no secret that he called all the shots. ...
Hot take incoming: Not long after Bret died, I became aware of something that gave me some pretty conflicted feelings. I'm still not sure how to feel about it, even seven+ years later. Bret had been a well-known guy with ...