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 ...
Anger is stage two, according to the five stages of grief. Widows know that there are no stages but rather a flurry of emotions that occur all at once or independently and repeat randomly. Anger can be difficult to deal ...
When I’ve gone to write posts for this blog, the words just fell out of me. But not this time. This time it doesn’t feel like I have any words to give. Sometimes it feels like this is all I ...
As mothers, we spent much of the first years of our children's life trying to protect them. From holding hands, to forcing sunscreen on wiggly toddlers, to buckling them in the car safely, to kissing scraped knees. It can ...
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 ...
Learning to let people help you can be very hard. I have often had to bury my ego and seek help from my Mom or sometimes, in extreme cases, church. I enjoy being the giver much more than receiving. ...
Grief is something that widows live with and it is also what makes everyone around us uncomfortable. The reality of grief is that it’s permanent; it’s not something we get over or outgrow. Grief exists near the surface of life ...
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 ...