This past Tuesday was our 25th wedding anniversary and I celebrated alone, sitting under the windchimes in my gazebo. A small portion of Rick’s ashes are in the chimes, so I always feel like he’s with me when I sit there. It was his favorite place to sit in the evenings, so I thought it was the perfect location to … Read the blog
Category: Grief – Year Four
His Lasting Impact on My Life – Hope for Widows Blog for June
The impact of Rick’s death has lessened as the years go by. That’s only natural. I’ve always been a firm believer that time really does heal all wounds, although not as quickly as we would like (and I definitely formed that opinion before experiencing widowhood). But certainly the enormous and raw pain I felt daily in the first months and … Read the blog
The Ordinary Moments – May 2022 Hope for Widows Blog
I was watching a Brene Brown video and she talked about how everyone wants to have extraordinary experiences, but how the little things in life really matter more. She said that after stunning life events, like near-death experiences, the death of a loved one, or other traumas, in the aftershock, what we miss are the ordinary moments before the event … Read the blog
Relinquishing the Dead – Hope for Widows Blog, January 2022
Author Joan Didion died in December. I’ve always enjoyed her writing, but I owe her a special debt of gratitude for her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. In it, she described the grief and pain following the death of her husband, and the lost sense of reality that resulted from her grief. (She also refers to this state … Read the blog
Grief Knows No Bounds – Hope for Widows Post for December 2021
Grief knows no bounds. It can be triggered when you least expect it, although most triggers are obvious and predictable. After Rick’s death, I knew going into a diner, Home Depot, or Costo would be painful. I knew vacationing without him for the first time would be awful. Smelling his aftershave or seeing a large bald man would sometimes be … Read the blog
Remembrances of Things Past – Hope for Widows Blog for November
The first year or two after losing Rick, every memory that popped into my mind was an emotional trigger that sometimes made me sob, and other times just brought on some quiet tears. The trick was learning to handle these moments because you never knew where or when they were going to hit. It wasn’t just seeing a picture of … Read the blog
Remembered Moments – Hope for Widows Blog
I went on a date last Saturday night…it was my first date with a new man I met in an online dating app. After two years of first dates, the only thing I know for sure is that you never know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised to find he was a nice guy: interesting, intelligent, fun to … Read the blog
Grief, Year Four: Embracing Life for Both of Us – Hope for Widows Blog
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 watched the water cascading across the large stones, and finally he asked, “Well, where are the falls?” Two weeks later, … Read the blog