Category: Guilt
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Year 2
I’m halfway through my second year without my Joe, and I can tell you without any reservation that year two of this grief is harder than I expected. The first year I walked around in a fog, unable to process the trauma of everything. The flashbacks have come back in full force. Performing chest compressions…
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Not enough
All around me, I see people walking boldly in their faith. Widows and widowers who have lost their spouses, cancer patients fighting to survive, single people praying for a forever partner, parents asking for guidance for their children. The people around me pray better than I do. They write about God more prolifically than I…
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Dust in the wind
I’ve been cleaning out closets recently, getting rid of the junk that I have acquired over the years. I’ve come across a few things and wondered “why would Joe have ever bought that?” but I just shove it back into the closet, not ready to make a decision about keeping it. It’s the stuff that…
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You can’t always get what you want
“Happiness is a choice.” A friend of mine posted this quote on the Facebook the other day. She then asked others what that quote meant to them. The responses were interesting, and expected, and some were even inspiring. It’s so easy to say “I choose to be happy” when life is going well. On the…
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Over the rainbow
The definition of a year is the time taken by the earth to make one revolution around the sun. It’s been one revolution since I last heard Joe’s voice, felt his arms around me. One revolution since his heart stopped beating and mine broke into a million pieces. One year ago, was the start of…
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Gravity
When was the last time you thought about gravity? I turned 60 this year, so of course gravity hasn’t exactly been my friend. And I’m not the most graceful person in the world, so I prove the theory more often than not. But lately that word means something completely different. The gravity of this grief…
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Hanging by a moment
I’ve really be struggling lately with my grief. An entire year has almost gone by since I lost my husband, and some days I feel like it just happened. It feels like an out-of-body experience. Waking every morning to a world that is no longer mine. Wandering through a house filled with our things, covered…
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It’s okay to be okay
Throughout my grief journey many people have told me “It’s okay to not be okay”, and they were right. There are no rules when it comes to grief. Someone came up with the stages of grief a very long time ago (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). And all those things do happen, but they don’t…
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Crazy train
Well, it’s official! I’ve stepped off the deep end and my dogs genuinely think I’ve lost it. I went home for lunch today and realized I forgot to change the HVAC filters over the weekend. They are in the ceiling. Being only five-foot tall, getting to them from my stepstool is a challenge. But I’ve…
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Just say I’m sorry
One of the crazy things about grief is that you circle back to everything you said, everything you laughed about, everything you fought about during your time together. Joe and I laughed ALOT. He always found a way to make me smile, even in the middle of an argument, which used to annoy the crap…
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Wasted time
Today pretty much just sucks. I’m working from home (thank goodness) because the tears can’t seem to stop. The sadness is heavy today. I can’t stop questioning why. Why were we able to spend so many years being so happy, going through unbelievably hard struggles together (cancer and the death of parents) and surviving them,…
WidowSpeak - Random thoughts after losing my husband 