The Daring Widow

I've felt lighter recently.  My heart has been happy.  We are finally settled into our home.  Our sick puppy's mysterious ailments have been diagnosed.  Ada, my daughter, and I have been traveling for dance competitions and our family just came back from a week in Mexico.  Hell, I even went on a date.  Life is swirling around us.  People have told me I am glowing, that I am radiating energy.  This isn't just a really good bronzer, friends.  I actually think that this is me appearing even more clearly from a shroud of grief.   I see it in my children too.  I recently looked at pictures from our first Spring Break after Matt had passed.  The kids and I flew to the Canary Islands.  We all look pleasant, and I am sure it wasn't the 18 hours of travel, but our eyes are flat and dull... we were going through the motions.  Coping.  Sad.  When I look at my children now, they are laughing and buzzing and even quiet C...

I have been unpacking since our move in September. Both literally and figuratively.  Boxes and totes and emotions and feelings. Each box bringing up memories of a former life, a full life as a family of four.  A life of happiness and laughter and love and sadness and hospital trips and cancer. It’s been a daunting task to keep all the memories, happy and sad untangled.  To not feel a wave of sadness as I come across an old bottle of Matt’s medication, or hospital badges, or records of cars long since sold.  I have lost myself looking through his clothes, old pictures, just knick-knacks long forgotten.  There was much excitement of a new start in a new house. But the way things worked out, by the time I had the assurance my buyers wanted to proceed with the deal to the time I needed to move, I had ten days to pack up and go. I felt confident that we could do this.  I mean we moved from Michigan to North Carolina to Kansas in a span of three years.  Ten ...

So... I have been dating... in secret.  Ever since I decided it was time for me to begin meeting new people, I have found myself being secretive.  Of course, I know that not everyone needs to know my business, but as I think back on this first year and a half of dating, I have not been honest with myself.  I have not been honest with my friends and family and as such I have not been open and authentically myself.   My first date after Matt passed was actually with a long lost friend.  He lives out of state and happened to post a picture on Facebook of himself hunting a few hours South of me.  A quick comment on a photo led to a flurry of messages and phone calls.  I remember exactly where I was on that first phone call.  The first time I heard his voice in twenty-six years his deep Southern drawl unearthed a faint memory I had buried somewhere in my brain.  But what really caught me off guard was that he called me Allie.  Subsequently, e...

As I have mentioned previously, one of Matt's lasting gifts to me was the gift of peace.  He was such a thoughtful, kind, thorough husband and human being and, as such, he truly did have nearly everything done before he left this Earth.   We had the funeral plots selected, the type of burial service chosen, knew all the pallbearers- if it was to be done, Matt and I had talked about it and made decisions.   However, as a man who's last few texts to me before passing included information on our taxes, you know he would have most definitely left me a list of things to follow up on after his death.  I did not find this controlling or demeaning, rather the opposite.  To me, this list of to-dos brought me comfort.  Pay taxes - check.  Call the Social Security office - check.  Follow up on his student loan - check.  One by one, every last box on his list was checked off.   There was, however, one "to-do" that was only spoken amongst a few ...

I have often wished there was a grief timeline.  I am very much a visual person.  I love to have lists and still use an old school planner.  I have wished for this timeline, a specific date on the calendar, not because I want to get over Matt, but because I just want to know when I will be a bit less fragile, a bit less scatterbrained, a bit less teary over quiet reminders of him I see everyday.  If you know me, you know I am my own worst critic.  I tend to hold myself to a standard I would not hold for anyone else. It’s the way I am wired, and as I have grown older I am very much aware and working to be a bit nicer to myself.  I often tend to equate my fragility as weakness and I know I am not weak.   I’m a bad ass. I have changed tracheotomy tubes and drained chest catheters without formal training. I have flown my kids by myself halfway around the world for a spring break trip.  I’ve managed to keep my life and my kids’ lives going despite the ...

When you have a situation that deeply tests your faith, how do you respond?   Praying? Getting angry with God and asking why me?  Turning to any other distraction to ignore the situation at hand?  Or do you have to look at the big picture and find hope and peace in the signs around you?   I was raised in the Episcopal church.  We went every Sunday, faithfully.  I went to church camp and weekend religious retreats, went to youth group and Sunday school, served as an acolyte.  After college, my first job was a full time camp counselor at an Episcopal camp in Maryland.  I spent two summers there.  I felt very strong in my faith and relationship with God.   Matt was raised Catholic.  I know he was not involved in church activities to the extent that I was, however our two backgrounds religiously meshed well.  He was received into the Episcopal church and we felt it important to baptize our kids in my childhood church. Once Matt ...