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 ...
As I was making a left turn behind an unusually slow moving car, I gripped my steering wheel agitatedly and blurted out, "Why are you driving so slow?! You're stopping the flow of traffic. UGH!" And then I saw it. ...
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, ...
“Hello darkness, my old friend…” are the haunting lyrics of the beginning of the Simon and Garfunkel song, “The Sounds of Silence,” that have ebbed and flowed their way through the American musical fabric over the years. I know I ...
“When you die and I move to Finland**” is often heard in the house where I live. Always from the friend I live with to her husband of 10 years. It is always said rather matter-of-fact and casual; “babe take ...
"No man (or woman) steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and (s)he's not the same (wo)man."--Heraclitus I live near the Green River, drive across it a few times a day, walk next to it ...
Every morning I read a list of fifty things I have to be thankful for. I started doing this a few months ago; it was something my grief therapist suggested to help me get through the uncertainty and loneliness of ...
Watching TV can be a minefield for widows. I noticed this soon after I lost my husband; we were in the last season of The Sopranos. I could never make myself finish it after his death. But, I kept thinking ...
Maybe is it the change of seasons, the holidays approaching, or the idea that things are even more different this year given the worldly circumstances, but lately I have found myself listening to sad songs and staring at pictures of ...
My husband has been gone for more than three years. I should be used to living as a widow and existing in my “new normal.” But today I realized, no matter how long I exist without him, I’m not sure ...