What do you do when your greatest fear becomes your unexpected reality? Did the unexpected loss make everything in your life feel ever more terrifying? Or did you feel hopeless and depressed and stop caring? This week I am reminded ...
Allowing myself to be happy, after the death of my husband, always felt a little like betrayal. It felt like I was shouting from the highest peaks that life without him was enjoyable, like I didn’t care that he had ...
It hurts intensely just to breath. Everything externally around you or internally within you seems to trigger stabs directly into your heart. You feel gutted out, as if just a shell remains The center of your being feels shattered. A ...
My first grief therapy experience was a disaster – a Freudian approach connecting everything back to sex and my parents that left me feeling more broken and bewildered than when I began. The counseling was shoved in my face about ...
I miss my husband every minute of every day. When the good things happen, I want to rush home and tell him all about every detail. When I am weary, the day was a let down, and things don’t go ...
Over the years, in various blogs, I have shared that my late husband, Bret, wasn't exactly the easiest person to be around. Oh, sure he could absolutely be the life of the party. But at home, with no one new ...
When you lose your spouse, whether you are a parent or not, there are phrases that you will hear from family, friends and acquaintances. These phrases are spoken out of care and, I believe, an unspoken discomfort in not knowing ...
Sharing The Loss So how do you explain to someone new you meet that you are a widow? When do you say it? Do you wait for someone to ask an awkward question that they don’t even realize they ...
It seems that in life a young widow so very often feels like an oddly shaped piece that doesn’t fit into the puzzle of life going on around them. Many families around you are established and complete. They have their ...
Father's Day has passed for another year. This one and Mother's Day can be tough dates for the widow/er community. In my mere six-plus years in this sad little club, I have noticed the sentiments for Father's Day in particular ...