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Feeling Bad That It Doesn’t Feel Bad
Three years is a strange marker in the widow world. The first year of widowhood is just about survival. It’s about figuring out how to get up every day, how to grieve and still pay the bills, how to put one foot in front of the other when you’re so tired you can’t even really think. It’s about making it through to the end of the day. Or at least it was for me. The second year feels easier for some people, and harder for others. It’s when the day-to-day life gets more manageable, and yet the intensity of the loss is still there. My second year, I had a…
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I Am Happy, Like You Wanted
My school is a place where we celebrate everything. Christmas, Diwali, Passover….you name it. I love that we celebrate all of the many wonderful traditions that students do at home. This year, a teacher from my department decided that we should do a Day of the Dead altar, something from his culture. He invited us all to participate by bringing a framed photo of a dead loved one, as well as an object that person loved. The display was covered in orange flowers and slowly a few photos appeared. After a few days, I decided I wanted to add my own photo, so I went back to my desk to…
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Totes in the Garage
I love spring cleaning. I love getting rid of things I don’t need, wiping down the surfaces of stuff that’s been in storage for the winter, organizing and using my label maker. I’m that girl. I love it so much that I also do a fall clean-out. And sometimes I even add a winter cleaning. But being a widow makes this process more complicated. I’ve always been a person who gets rid of everything I don’t need, and everyone knows this about me. In fact, my kids are so aware of this part of my personality that they’ll frequently give me something (a toy from a birthday party or a…
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No Thanks
When Shawn died, I started keeping a diary. I’m sure you’re thinking, “of course you did! We’ve read over 500 entries here on this blog!” And yes, part of my writing was public, and I put it here on my blog. But I had a whole separate place where I wrote more personal things, or things that I just didn’t know how to turn into a blog post. It’s where I wrote about the real fear I had, before I could write publicly about fear. It’s where I wrote about crying in the shower and waking up at 3 am and worrying about my kids. And yes, some of that…
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Bride of Frankenstein
In our family, we take Halloween very seriously. It’s funny that one of my favorite holidays is the one that’s all about spirits, supernatural beings, and death. You should see our front yard – it’s covered not just in cobwebs and spiders, but also in skeletons and graves. The first year after Shawn died, I worried my kids would hate Halloween, but I was wrong. They weren’t bothered at all by the decorations or by the themes that surrounded them everywhere they went. But I was. That year, I fixated on how – the year prior – Shawn had been so ill on Halloween that he’d barely left the house.…
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Nun or Assassin? Your Guide to Widow Fashion!
This morning, I went to my closet to try and pick out my outfit for the day. First, I looked through my assortment of nun’s habits and other floor-length gowns complete with dark veils and other things that make is very difficult to see. They have to hang on the super-strength hangers as they are heavy and velvety and smell a bit like death. But as I was thumbing through these gorgeous pieces, I wasn’t sure about my clothing choice. Was this the vibe I was going for? I turned to the other half of my closet, the part where I have all of my lace-up bustiers and leather pants…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
