Time Hop

Every morning I get a reminder from Time Hop…”see what happened on this date…”

I open the app with trepidation.

Will it make me laugh or cry? Will the photos from the past affect me like a dagger through the heart?

Four years ago…Rick sitting by the fire in the backyard. He’s wearing his favorite red hoodie and the plaid jacket that I hastily grabbed from the front closet this morning when I took out the garbage. I’ve appropriated some of his clothing and jackets. I suppose it’s an attempt to feel close to him again. He wore this. It touched him. He was alive.

How does today’s photo make me feel?

Sad. Happy.

Sad that he’s gone.

Happy that he was once here and part of my life…that we had those times by the fire, his favorite part of the day.

Grief for what will never be again.

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *