The Golden Years
I never thought I’d be alone
In the golden years…
This stage of life we longed for
Retired from the nine to five drudge
Free to do anything we wanted.
When we looked towards the future,
we saw beaches and travel
More of this!
We said, when we took that three-week trip to Europe
Some day, we’ll … Read the blog
Five years ago today, I held Rick’s hand in a death grip. A literal death grip, for hour upon hour. By noon of that day, I realized he was going to die, and he did, at 8pm that night.
The night before, alone in my bed, I had an odd feeling. A scary feeling. A feeling like my life was … Read the blog
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
I attended a writers’ conference two weeks ago. I’m still working (reworking) my plans for life without Rick after retirement. We had big plans. We started our web design business in 2001 with the goal of having plenty of work that we could enjoy doing together remotely from our favorite spot in Florida half the year, and back near our … Read the blog
Last week was the anniversary of our first date. I remembered writing about that date a year after his death, so I looked up the blog. There it was, and as I read it, I remembered that stage of grief again, the rawness of another “first” without him. But something else happened while I read it…I started to smile. There … Read the blog
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
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
I don’t often write much here about my dating experiences or my new relationships. For one reason, this is a blog about widowhood and grief, and not about virtual dating or how to navigate the dating world. For another reason, no one would believe some of the stories I could tell. It’s been interesting, to say the least.
But the … Read the 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
Oh Facebook, you’re killing me. Here I sit again with tears streaming down my face. Note to self: do not check the Facebook memories until you’re really prepared for it.
The memories that seem to get me are the ones from four years ago, the last good year with Rick. From January to August 2016, life was normal. But then … Read the blog