
Widows Need a Hideaway Retreat

Do Widows Have to Exercise?
Widows are supposed to feel lousy, and have no energy. Everybody knows grief is ugly. Since it doesn’t matter how I look anymore, why should I push myself out the door, or sign up for a stinky gym?
Do you recognize my attitude? I had it for a couple of years after the death of my husband, and I gained about twenty pounds. Did that mak [...]
I Got a Fever Blister for Valentine...
Valentine’s Day is over and you sigh with relief. Did you have a feeling of neglect all day and shed tears over the romantic Valentine attention you once had? Or did you rush through the day, your head filled with getting the day over with before your heart noticed?
At this point in your life you might consider yourself lucky if your deceased [...]
Happy New Year???

Has My Grief All Gone?
Today was a good day. I talked to my kids, and they are all fairly healthy and happy. Nothing in the house or car went boing or glub, glub, so that’s great. I worked all day on school projects, preparing ideas to teach my elementary kids how to find the main idea in a paragraph. Then we’ll work on discovering the same thing in a whole story. [...]
Whatever Helps on Coping With Grief
Ruby said I needed to get rid of the clothes in Robert’s closet. She got rid of her husband’s almost immediately after he died. She couldn’t bear looking at them anymore. I don’t blame her for that, but that was just not me.
I closed the door on Robert’s closet and hardly opened it for a year. I decided the jeans and plaid shirts were fine th [...]
Baby Steps for Closure
Leaving Grief behind is a journey of small steps. Each day takes you farther from the beginning, the moment you heard of the car crash or the instant the poor tired body gave up the fight. From that instant on, you started on a difficult journey that you must travel to the end.
Intense grief turns to poignant memories. Despair returns to hope [...]
Revisiting Stages of Grief
Revisiting Stages of Grief
Because these are so fluid I hesitate to mention them to you. A Christian psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, explored five stages years ago, and they are still true to a certain extent. The thing is we are all different, and while we will all go through most of these stages to a point, it is not regimented like th [...]
Is Silence Truly Golden?
Is Silence Truly Golden?
“Will you kids quit running and screaming? Can’t I have just five minutes of silence?”
“Please, kids, turn down that loud music and give me five minutes of silence.”
“Honey, will you please turn off that TV for just five minutes of silence?”
A widow knows a lot about silence. Now it echoes through the house with the [...]
Grief–Personal as a Photo
Grief—Personal as a Photo
I’m new to blogging, but I started it as a way to help widows trudge along the grief journey until the trudging turns into a jog. (Yes, it will eventually happen!) And I’ve learned a few things along the way, quite a few as a matter of fact.
I learned shedding buckets of tears doesn’t make you lose weight. I le [...]