I’m Going In
I did it – I pulled the ladder down from the ceiling and prepared to face the cavern in the attic above the garage. Cold air wafted toward the floor like the breath of a sleeping giant, heavy with the aroma of something drunk on the past. I steadied myself. My climb was tentative and […]
A Christmas Lightbulb Moment
I’ve been dragging my heels and hanging onto November with my fingernails – doing everything in my power not to face December, but here it is. November gave me the slip on Friday and on Saturday my family pushed me into the festive season like a kid tossed into the deep end of the pool […]
New to the hood
I have a new neighbor, someone I love dearly moved into the widowhood this week and I’m heartsick about it. Her journey to the hood was much like my own and she has arrived here in the same fashion I did eight months ago; overwhelmed, over tired and broken. It will take a while for her […]
Getting Real
I’m not treading water anymore, I’ve been swimming in my archives lately, paddling around and taking a closer look at memories that have been muddied by grief. I’ve been reliving the days leading up to the end; the end of life as I knew it. The strange thing is I’m not drowning in tears as […]
The Archives
There was a guy, once upon a time, who thought I was pretty – more than that, he made me believe that I was. He saw something in me that gave both of us confidence. I spent forty years with that guy. Forty years – the lifetime of our marriage. Over the years we did […]
The Best We Can Do
You would think that after months of dealing with grief I would know how to help someone else deal with theirs – I don’t. I’m the awkward person I’ve always been, maybe even more so. If I’ve learned anything about grieving by grieving it’s that I know nothing about how anyone else feels – grief […]
Where I’m At
I still have maudlin moments, moments when I let memory walk me back into that sterile hospital room where I indulge my grief and relive the hours just before he passed away. I place myself in the middle of the nightmare – the dark center where the air is thick with fear. Back to when […]
Picture Perfect
I find myself flipping through photos of him on my iPad; studying his face, zooming in on his eyes, and wondering. I can almost see the moment the light went out, when he began to realize things were amiss. I wonder if he saw the end drawing near or if he knew his time was […]
11-11 The Eleventh Hour, The Eleventh Month
We will remember. We will gather, red poppies pinned on our lapels – the sound of a lone bugle will haunt the sky, the air will fill with the wisps of remembrance. We will gather to honor the dead, those who died in the name of freedom. It’s the least we can do. None […]
Getting a move on
Every day I get a little further from the life we lived together. It’s like I live in a fog of what used to be – like I’m waiting for the sun to break through and show me the lay of the land. I feel disoriented and lost. This sense of waiting for something is […]