Tag: music
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Oh October
Hello October! Last month, at the two-year mark of my husband’s passing, I decided to stop being a bystander in my own life and really start living again. My last blog chronicled the beginning of that new journey with a quick trip to our favorite beach to honor my sweet man. Not so much to…
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I don’t know much
It’s been a weekend. I took Friday off because this weekend was our 23rd wedding anniversary. Looking back that was probably a mistake. I should have worked through Friday. Then maybe Saturday, the big day, might not have been such a shit show. You know the drill. More tears than humanly possible, baking in mass…
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Reminiscing
I reminisce a lot these days. It’s hard not to when memories of my late husband are all around me. Our life is plastered on every wall in our home, on my desk at work, in the photos on my phone. I knew him better than anyone on this earth. We finished each other’s sentences,…
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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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Nothing compares to you
I have this habit of pulling up YouTube videos, picking one song and then letting the algorithm pick the rest of what I’m going to listen to for the day. I’ve been stuck in Chris Cornell’s music for days now. Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Audioslave. His voice was perfection. He could have sung the…
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Firm foundation
These are my parents, Jim & Shirley. My parent’s love story is one for the ages. Married for 67 years, they met in 1955. Both were serving in the United States Air Force in Texas. Mom worked in the post office on base and dad was in flight school. He stopped in to get his…
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Sometimes love just ain’t enough
I fell down the big black hole of grief today. Deep into the hole. It’s been a while. It started with my mammogram screening. As I sat in that little room waiting to be called back, all I could think about was “what if something’s wrong” and “how would I go through that alone”. Next…
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Far behind
I found a sticky note under my desk pad this morning. I’d forgotten I put it there last summer with a list of all the concerts I bought tickets for. This was Joe’s 57th birthday present. I learned quickly the very best gifts for him were anything that had to do with music. We gave…
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In the strangest places
Maybe it’s just me and I force the dots to connect, thinking Joe is sending me signs when I need them. Or maybe, he knows exactly how to get my attention through music, and he really is “talking” to me from above. I choose to believe the latter. Yesterday he made his presence known once…
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Bloom
Easter is upon us. A time for rebirth, new life. Not just Christ’s rebirth, but everything around us as well. The flowers and the trees are coming alive again after lying dormant for so many months. I can’t help but think God planned it so his Son would rise again just as His Creation would…
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Learning to walk again
I wish I wasn’t someone who was tied to dates and calendars the way I am. It’s the nature of my job as an executive assistant. And the nature of my personality as an organizer, the scheduler of all things. An attribute that is also one of my biggest faults. It’s been six months since…
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Either way
Do you ever hear a song and wonder why your significant other loves it so much? I am a huge Chris Stapleton fan, and my late husband Joe was too. Stapleton’s ability to capture emotions, typically mine, in his melodies is so beautiful. He is the quintessential storyteller, and I could listen to his music…
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Cry me a river
Spring has arrived. And with it all the trees are in bloom, gardens are being prepped for planting, longer days are finally here. With the change in season, I find myself crying uncontrollably more often than not. And I had just mentioned in a previous post that I seemed to be smiling more than crying.…
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Sending me angels
I spent my morning hanging out at home, doing nothing in particular. I had plans later with our friends Jeff & Lisa for an afternoon of Scrabble. As I was getting ready, an overwhelming sense of grief came over me and my tears would not stop. I knew I needed to move, to get out…
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Say my name
Have you noticed there are certain people in your life who seem to tense up when you mention the person you lost? Their eyes avert to some object across the room, or they awkwardly smile and change the subject immediately. Some will laugh nervously, others will just give you this blank stare as if to…
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I try
It’s my 60th birthday today. It’s been a weird day. I woke up torn between two worlds. Part of me wanted to get up, to thank God for waking me up, and to seize the day. The other part of me wanted to pull the covers over my head and stay there. Why? Because Joe.…
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Music heals the soul
One of the greatest things Joe & I leaned on during his cancer battle was worship music. Music spoke to us in ways that scripture couldn’t, in ways that preachers didn’t. Cancer initially reignited our faith out of fear, but as the journey continued that fear was replaced with hope and our faith grew stronger…
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An eagle, a deacon & so much joy
I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and my first thought wasn’t about my loss. How amazing is that? Last night I attended the Eagles Long Goodbye Final Tour in Tulsa. Joe’s sister & her husband were gracious enough to buy me a ticket to go with them. The Eagles are…
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Dear God . . .
Do you struggle with your faith? I feel like my faith is as strong as it’s ever been. I have no doubts about my salvation, no doubt that Joe and my parents are in heaven, and we will be reunited again someday. God’s unfailing love is a comfort to me. But my emotions, my feelings…
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Somewhere in the sunshine
I firmly believe those who have gone before us having the ability to send us signs. Joe has sent me more than a few since he passed away last September. I love receiving messages from him in the form of a seashell in an unusual place, glitter from 20 years ago, or an extra snuggle…
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This ain’t nothin’
Boy, the pity party has been raging around here for days! It started when what I thought was a cold jumped into high gear two nights ago. I tried to sleep in the living room, sitting upright because I couldn’t breathe or stop coughing when I laid down. Instead, I was up all-night. It wasn’t…
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Have I told you lately?
Over the past four months I’ve had a lot of people ask me what happened to my Joe. I can clinically explain the details. He went into sudden cardiac death at home. We got him back thanks to CPR. In ICU he was put into a medically induced coma on a respirator. They attempted to…
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In dreams
I finally dreamt about Joe last night! This is the first time I’ve seen him in my dreams at night. He visited me once during a nap one afternoon when I fell asleep in the living room chair. That one was brief, and sweet, and almost like a flashback from the beginning of our relationship.…
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Listening to the wind
One of Joe’s most favorite artists was Merle Haggard. Merle was one of a kind. His music spoke to you. It was music for the everyday man, and it was lightening in a bottle. Never to be duplicated again. My parents adored Merle as well and listened to him on every road trip. I remember Joe…
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A little bit softer now
Was your person larger than life? My Joe was! He lit up every room he walked into. Dubbed “Crown Joe” during our competitive BBQ days, he was known for taking the cap off the Crown Royal bottle and throwing it away, no glass needed. Always ready for a party, always the man with the music,…
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Waste not want not
Is your refrigerator empty? Mine is most of the time. Well, except for the pickles. Why do I have an abundance of pickles? Anyway, I went to make a sandwich the other day and realized the Kraft singles had been there since the beginning of September. What is their shelf life anyway? Do they expire? Is…
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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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Exhale
Well, I can’t explain it, but today was just a good day. And honestly, it’s so nice to have just a good day. No tears, no anxiety, no worries. Every time I thought of Joe, which was all the time, I smiled. I’m thankful for all the years we had together, I’m grateful for the…
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Don’t give up on me yet
I woke up this morning in a new year. A year Joe will never know. I’ve mentioned before how hard all of this is for me because I don’t know how to do nothing. I’ve always been a doer. I’ve always been a fixer. When Joe was sick with cancer, I did so much research.…
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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,…
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Last thing I needed first thing this morning.
It’s been exactly three months since my Joe left this world. September 22nd at 1:07am. Twelve weeks missing half of my heart. Ninety days without my soulmate. 2,160 hours lost in grief. 129,600 minutes of loneliness. Sometimes it feels like moments ago, and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. It was over seven million…
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Can you hear me?
I find myself talking to Joe throughout the day. The people across the street finally tore down that rickety old garage that had collapsed back on Father’s Day. I stood at the kitchen window telling Joe how glad he’d be to see it all cleaned up. When I can’t find something because he put it…
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JJ Grey was our saving grace
Music. It’s my saving grace and it also magnifies the chink in my armor. Whenever a JJ Grey & Mofro song comes on I smile immediately. Joe found this funky mix of swamp and soul music during chemotherapy back in 2018. The song that got him hooked “This River” makes me cry, and I haven’t…
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The music that made us
On my worst days, the music is the only thing that keeps me going. Today is one of those days. I’m so grateful to Joe for introducing me to so many different genres of music. It’s funny how certain songs seem as if they were written just for us. And they follow the path of our…
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I’d rather go blind
My Joe loved music. All music. When we first met his tastes were a bit more on the harder rock side like Metallica and Nine Inch Nails. Fun fact, you can drive from Dallas, Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the time it takes to listen to the Nine Inch Nails album “Pretty Hate Machine” twice.…
WidowSpeak - Random thoughts after losing my husband 