Holiday, Love Lives On, Motivational poster, Quote, Valentine, widow
Some thoughts on love and a little Valentine’s day heARTwork. Can you love more than one person at a time? Of course, you can. How do you hold the love for those who are not with you in this life? Do you speak their name? Share memories and stories of their life? Do you remember them in quiet moments of internal reflection that require no words at all? Do you see them in a look or hear them in the laugh of someone else you love? Love lives...
9/11, birthday, grief, widow
Today, September 11th, is my birthday. As a member of the widowed community I now have met and come to know the real life stories of women who lost their person on 9/11/2001. Knowing that others are mournful on a day that I would otherwise be celebrating does put a damper on the day. How could it not? Celebrating love that lives on with Tanya at Camp Widow West. Her fiance, Sergio Villanueva, was a responding NYC firefighter on September 11, 2001. On my 2001 birthday I opened cards that arrived in the mail, glanced at them and tossed them straight in the trash. I can’t tell you exactly why. Grief alters our usual behavior in unexpected ways. We stayed quietly at home. We did not sing the birthday song. I can’t remember if there was a cake. My birthday remains a paradox: this day is not about me but this day is about me. Over the course of the last decade plus I have created a few ways to take care of myself and handle the contradictory feelings of the day. I stay away from media, enjoy a nice dinner that I don’t have to cook and each year I ask myself what feels right as a way to honor the totality of the day. Imagine opening your mailbox and finding more than one hundred birthday greetings. That’s what social media, in particular Facebook, can be like on a birthday. It’s pretty awesome. Now imagine following the mail carrier as she makes her rounds and seeing that on that same day in all the other mailboxes she...
clown, depression, grief, suffering, suicide, teacher, why, widow
On our first real date in 1989 my late husband and I saw Dead Poets Society. It was a great date-night movie, inspirational with poignant reminders to explore, stay curious and that we are all creative beings. We were in our early twenties just venturing out in our own lives and trying to figure out how to make them extraordinary. The film was poetry brought to life through script, cinematography and cast. As I recall this was my first experience of Robin Williams in a serious role moving him far beyond the simple but fun silliness of Mork from Ork. He was superb in the lead role; a vast talent not just mere funny man. I was uplifted by the experience of watching him and became a fan for life. He glows before us on the silver screen standing on top of a desk. “We must constantly look at things in a different way. The world looks very different from up here,” he tells the students, encouraging them to climb up too and look around with a new perspective. “…just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way, even though it may seem silly or wrong. You must try.” We think we know death and the reasons for it. Robin Williams took his own life and speculation abounds as to why: addiction, depression, maybe even bi-polar proposed one armchair psychiatrist in the media. He, like so many others who have died by suicide, is called selfish for his actions. But let’s take a new perspective. Let’s climb up on that desk and...
accepting new love, grief, hope, letting go, moving forward, widow
When I started this blog I wrote about the pluff mud of grief. In it, I outlined how I thought my life would go…my Plan A. By now you know that Plan A went awry in a few ways not the least of which was the death of my beloved husband. So what do we do when Plan A is not an option anymore? Move on to Plan B, right? Should we take second best? Not even close. Michele Neff-Hernandez, founder of Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, was living her Plan A in 2005. She had a husband, three kids and a career as a personal trainer. Life in her Plan A was good, challenging, and stressful at times but all the same, amazing. Her widow journey began after she kissed her husband goodbye one afternoon. Phil left for his bike ride as was his routine but would not return, his young life cut short by an SUV. Breath by breath, step by step, Michele began to learn what it was like to live in profound grief and to move in a world that no longer had Phil in it. Plan A was wiped away. Jump forward to today and you will find Michele standing in front of a room full of widows and widowers delivering a keynote address at Camp Widow in Myrtle Beach, SC. Our Plan A is gone too. Gently she reminds us that we don’t have to settle for Plan B. We can create for ourselves a new Plan A…an amazing one. Yes, it’s hard but equally, yes, it is possible. She urges us to take the...
close up, grief, loss, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Photography, widow
In the immediate weeks after my husband died I found myself zooming in to take pictures of ordinary things. I wish I could say exactly why but it was just something I did. It gave me some unnamable comfort to focus no farther than the distance to the end of my arm. My favorite wine still bubbled. Distracting myself from the task of buying new tires – something he always did - I examined the colorful candies in the vending machine. Considering a crack in the cool floor, my children playing nearby. My sweet cat’s sympathetic eyes. I looked at what had not changed. The sun still came up in the morning, the wind still blew, and for now these things endured no matter who was in the world and who was not. Close ups were my instinctive way of recognizing some level of gratitude for life. There they were, existing alongside my grief. Something, however small, was still right. What do you still appreciate that has not changed? What comforts you? What brightens or lessens an otherwise painful moment? What patterns, colors or textures give you a moment of respite? I invite you; take a close...
grief, marsh, Photograph by Ken Gehle, widow
How did I get here? Is this really my life? It’s certainly not the one I had planned out. This is how I thought it was supposed to happen: Awesome career Strong marriage More happily engaged career until children Stay-at-home mom for a bit More rewarding career time Joyful retirement Travel with husband of close to 40 years by then Eventually settle close to home and grow contentedly old with husband while playing with our grandchildren Naïve, I know. What I did not plan or even conceive of was: Awesome career Strong marriage More happily engaged career until children Not being able to afford the stay-at-home mom dream More rewarding career time but profoundly stressful Layoff resulting in slide into ill-fitting jobs Husband diagnosed with cancer at 44 – trying to save his life every day Husband dead at 46 (Insert record scratch sound here.) What, now?! “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” ~ Allen Saunders, writer and cartoonist No, this was not the life I had planned. But here it is and it is still mine to live even if it is not proceeding according to my original design. So what do I do with it? What do any of us do when faced with an enormous life challenge? You keep moving: one breath at a time, one heartbeat at a time, and eventually one step at a time. The salt marshes of the Carolinas are known for their pluff mud: a mixture of fine sand, silt, water and plenty of organic matter. It’s pull-your-shoes-off thick and the smell –...
ALAL on Facebook
ALAL on Pinterest
Tamara on LinkedIn
Follow on Twitter
