All Blog Posts Tagged 'recovery' (8)

...... it's suddenly not.

I have always described grief and grieving as standing in the ocean.  In the beginning I wasn't able to keep standing because of the relentless pounding of the waves.  They came at me one after another.  It felt as if I were in the middle of a a typhoon, or a hurricane.  I've been in the…

When I was 6 years old my family went to Expo 67 in Montreal.  I remember walking over a huge…

The first half of April, this year, is marked by many sad occasions for me. I already had Easter as the marker for the day my mom died although it actually happened on the 3^rd. Easter, however, never falls on the same calendar date so it’s like there are two dates of sorrow instead of one for her. Next, Don’s ashes will be interned on the 16^th which was our anniversary. Both our birthdays plus my parents’ anniversary also fall in this first 16 days of…

One bit of advice I ran across in several places for adjusting to my new life as a widow was "Find some new interests, something fresh that you enjoy and that never involved your partner."

Well. Hmph. This wasn't going to be easy. We had always had a few separate interests and activities, in addition to those we shared. But even my old independent activities didn't hold much interest for me in that first sorry year. Finding something that would motivate me enough to get dressed and…

They've had a rather stunning effect on me, those words I heard on the radio when Nancy Berns was discussing her book called, Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us.

The words bear repeating because I think they are incredibly wise. It's just taken slow me a long time to get it: You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal.

These words have given me an enormous sense of peace and permission to…

A widow friend of mine recently mentioned a new book about grief (which I haven't yet read) calledClosure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us by Nancy Berns. The author was speaking on NPR recently and her final words were: You Don't Need Closure to Heal. 

Yes folks, it's true. When you finally feel as though you've recovered from losing your spouse, you might just have one last hurdle to jump.

You can tell yourself that you feel better, that you're no longer drowning in grief, in fact, you just might…

Delighted now

Or should I say,

Relit?

After your ashes spread,

I scattered

away from the sun.

Artificial indoor light

bulbs burning all night long

through the winter

after you had gone.

Spring 2006 came on

like a dirty rat

revealing everyone's bliss,

my empty, messy lot.

I didn't want to look,

didn't have the right lens,

needed a box with a pinhole

to take in the…