Death of a Spouse, Your Grief

After Husband’s Death, my Year of ‘Solitary Firsts’

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

My Year of ‘Solitary Firsts’ As I write this article, 2-1/2 years after my husband Marty’s death, I am overwhelmed with surprise that so much time has passed. Memories of that first year are wrapped in a surreal haze and when vivid images do surface, the fog lifts and reveals my year of solitary firsts. February 11, 2009, marked the death of my husband, my mate of 42 years. A quote on the back of the Joyce Carol Oates book, A Widow’s Story, says “of the widow’s countless death-duties there is really just one that matters:  on the first anniversary […]

Bereavement, Death of a Child

Eight New Year’s Eves Ago

Saturday, January 16, 2021

There is a collective sigh of relief as we ring in 2021, and yet there is also mounting loss and unattended grief. For those of us who have been learning to live newly after the death of our own loves, we know that healing will take time and attention. Our own son Mack died 8 years ago today, two weeks shy of his ninth birthday. It still takes my breath away. How I long to see his teddy bear eyes and laugh together on the couch. I sense his joyful presence. I picture him running, his long legs stretched out, […]

Death of a Spouse, Your Grief

Recovery in Pieces

Thursday, October 31, 2019

It’s been many years, many miles, and many tears since the early, raw days of being widowed. The life I am living now is one I would never have recognized as mine when I walked down the aisle to take the hand of my soon to be husband. And, yet, it is of my own making. Completely designed and created by me with an incredible amount of effort, courage, and support from people who love me. Pieces from the Past Bits and pieces of the past are peppered throughout the life I am living without Gary. His artwork, a painting […]

Death of a Spouse

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Telling-Your-Child-About-a-Death

What is the story you tell yourself about your loss? Even as a child, I understood the power of stories. Through words, I could escape into worlds far, far away. Between the covers of books, I could find characters I could relate to when I felt misunderstood. Stories gave me comfort, sparked my imagination, and made me curious about people and places outside of my own environment. Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since our early days. History is built around the word. Stories are how we pass down knowledge and information to future generations. They are […]

Death of a Child

A Funeral, a Wedding, Graduations and One Unwanted Guest

Saturday, June 22, 2019

It has been six and a half years since our son, Mack, died suddenly on New Year’s Eve 2012, just shy of his ninth birthday. As the many of us who learn to live newly after loss, we take it on as a part of our lives and learn to carry Mack with us through life. So, as we entered this spring season of passages including a funeral, a wedding, and a handful of graduations, I was surprised by my fatigue. I have learned enough over the years to recognize when something is calling for my attention. In some ways […]

Death of a Spouse

Being Exquisitely Seen

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Books Saved Me I’ve been a lover of words and books and writers since childhood. I treasure the way we can be educated, transported, and transformed through what we read and the stories we share. Every so often, I hear a phrase strung together, like pearls on a string, that resonates deeply in my soul. How a phrase lands can be as breathtaking as the most beautiful view from a mountaintop. During difficult times, I’ve often turned to books for comfort, wisdom, and to feel less alone in my struggles. The author that saved me from my grief was Viktor […]

Open to Hope

Turning Less Into More

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Well, that was unexpected. It seems, even when dozens and dozens of years have passed, grief, and what triggers it, can still surprise me. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day. I’ve been motherless since I was seventeen years old. It was a quiet day today in my neighborhood. As I stood in silence, watering some succulents that seemed a little thirsty, two women walked by, each carrying a single rose and holding hands with a boy and a girl. “Ah, a Happy Mother’s Day must be in order here for both of you,” I said. I like to engage with […]

Death of a Spouse

Grief Through the Rearview Mirror

Sunday, April 7, 2019

This big, horrible thing happens. You lose the person with whom you chose to partner for the challenging, amazing, and, sometimes, scary thing called life. Each of us has our own unique experiences of the grieving process. Yet, it’s normal to feel like you have no idea how you’ll go on without them. Whether I like it or not, nearly twenty years after my husband’s death, I am living and breathing without him. I couldn’t imagine in the early days of losing him I would eventually have a life I could love again. It wasn’t easy. I needed to do […]

Death of a Child

Día de Muertos: Eat, Speak, and Remember

Friday, October 28, 2016

The Oxford English dictionary defines “remember” as to “have in or be able to bring one’s mind an awareness of someone or something from the past.” I have thought a lot about remembering or memory since our son Mack died on New Year’s Eve 2012, two weeks shy of his 9th birthday. Often a memory of a moment between us will bubble up unbidden and in the early days of mourning these would pierce me as a reminder of what I had lost. As the years have unfolded, I have come to relish those moments and even invite them. Recently, […]

Death of a Child

Scripting Our Own Paths After The Death of Our Children

Monday, August 17, 2015

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to both Susan Roback and Patty Furino for inspiring much of the content for this post. Deepening Bonds and  Linking Objects The relationship that I continue to share with my daughter Jeannine following her death in 2003 has on most days, allowed me to embrace a peaceful perspective.  As part of our ongoing relationship, she has regularly communicated signs of her presence. In the beginning, I longed for signs because the pain of her physical absence was unbearable. Today I still welcome signs from my daughter but no longer rely on them.  Jeannine makes her presence known […]