Remembering the first year after Todd died revives all of its raw, nearly physical pain. That year was a waking nightmare. Sometimes, another widow’s post or comment reminds me of the early weeks and months, and I hurt for her ...
I am blessed to have two amazing love stories. And today, I honor them both. It is possible to love what was while loving what is. My late husband, Jared and I were blessed to spend 16 Valentine’s Days ...
I never really felt comfortable with the word “widow”, I guess I’m not really supposed to, right? Like, who wants that word to describe who they are? But it does describe an aspect of who I am. Actually, now I ...
Death sucks. Plain and simple, it just sucks. Solo parenting is not an easy task. You are on duty 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There's no one to take your child for a night or weekend ...
Let’s begin a discussion about death and grief and send that elephant out the door. To enable this, society requires an open dialogue that provides education and empathy regarding the true reality of the grief journey. A shift in the ...
Here we are, in some of the darkest days of the year. I know the days have begun to get incrementally longer since the solstice, but that change seems imperceptible. Cold weather keeps us inside, out of whatever meager, cloud-filtered ...
I was all prepared to write about the importance of self-care for this post and had most of it written. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart and it’s a practice that moved me through the darkest parts ...
I read a news article yesterday, and the reporter stated that the widow was “still“ struggling with her grief one year later. And that word, still bothered me so very much. Upset me greatly. Of course she is “still“ struggling ...
We all know that feeling of a broken heart - wow, do we ever. After Dave died my heart literally felt physically broken. It was doing flip-flops in my chest and skipping beats like crazy. I’d been diagnosed with a ...
“Melissa, you’re brilliant!” I thought to myself. I had this great idea to spend our first holiday after Dave’s death in Disneyland. What a perfect distraction, right? I walked downstairs where the boys were playing video games - they were ...