The cashier insisted I bring home two pumpkins and a giant bag of candy after I awkwardly responded to her Halloween inquiry. ‘Uhm, Halloween just....isn't in the cards this year.' A thousand responses had flipped through my mind when she ...
I short circuit sometimes – when life gets too stressful – to a memory that repeats in haunting fashion. It is the lips of the doctor mouthing the words, “These things happen.” His lips are chapped and peeling. The corners ...
I still feel married. The dichotomy of this phrase is largely dismissed by widows. Conversely, we pass it around like bread at the dinner table, slathering it with butter and comforting our palates with the way it rolls off our ...
I have believed in God for as long as I can remember. My mother and the church indoctrinated me with visions of the cross, and on Sundays, I trailed behind her with hurried steps while she marched us towards service ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Forever Incomplete I have always struggled with the incompletes in life. I was a self proclaimed over achiever who couldn’t settle for anything less than finishing each task. Earning less than an A made me sad. Goals, to ...
An Alphabet of Grief A is for aches. Heart ache, head ache, stomach ache, you name it, it’s aching. B is for brain fog…. Followed by brain hurricanes, brain earthquakes and brain tornadoes. C is for comparison. My ...
The Hole in my Heart A new year begins and the hole in my heart doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller. I wonder if this is the way that grief will be impacting me for the rest of ...