My Journey Continues

Relationships that are meaningful to us are essential to our happiness. To feel connected and joyful, we require the human bond, and we enjoy life much more when we share it with those we care about. However, there are instances when we must be away from our loved ones. One of the hardest things we'll ever have to do is cope with loss. Everyone deals with sorrow in their own unique way, and some of us never do. When we lose someone we care about, our universe and our tranquilty are thrown off, and nothing appears to be right. There is a future that will never exist and a past that we wish to return to, and we feel as if we can't be more removed from reality and the current moment. We prefer to oppose the change as much as possible, attempting to maintain our existing level of comfort and security since change is difficult. But life is always changing—sometimes for the worse, such as when we lose someone we love; sometimes for the better, such as when we move to a new house; and

I lay in bed on my back in the dark, unable to sleep.   I close my eyes and see black so I squint to see something that is in-between life and darkness.   I calm my mind, readying to talk to God, an unknown force of which I don’t know how to conceptualize. I am gearing up to beg for my daughter’s life.   I feel unworthy, lost in the space separating a modern world and the stories of the bible.   Why?   I scream in my head silently, Why are you doing this?   I wonder if I’m in hell. Take me! Take me instead if you need a life. I plead, My baby is so young…her babies need her…take me!   I hear nothing and I struggle with believing anyone discerns my desperation, feeling my thoughts are ineffectual and useless. I yearn with the deep part of my soul that I can connect with an unseen spirit to help me.   But a part of me knows I will not see an angel, I will not see God, I will not see Dean and I know that she will die. Maybe my faith is not strong enough, theref

Sooo ….you might have noticed I stopped writing for the last one hundred and eighteen days.  I just couldn’t physically write a word, and it’s as if I unconsciously put a cork in my brain to stop the flow of nonstop shit that relentlessly flowed from my memory banks. I guess it was natures way of letting me take a break and heal. I have been working on my second book, which is not about grief by the way, but filled with older, past memories that kept the grieving wound open and festering. I t was nice for a while, to not dissect every well-meaning thought to be written down, but the urge to say what I needed to say, silently prompted me to start writing and sharing once again. Naturally, my thoughts touched on why I felt the need to stop the chatter and I realized I was ashamed of my grief. I was…am… embarrassed of my sadness…and more recently…my happiness …the fact that life continued to move forward without my husband, father and daughter just felt wrong.

                                          Courtesy of Unsplash - Samuel Zeller  My husband has stopped haunting me. No more lights going off and on, furniture vibrating, owls hooting outside my window before every event, vivid visitation dreams of us being together or his smell floating around me in a movie theater. I am angry. I feel like he left me all over again. His visitations were the only thing that got me through his absence. That, and the knowledge that he was still with me. It ended six months ago, two years and two months after his death, when I moved into my latest home. It’s a perfect home for me, with grand living room ceilings, open kitchen with three ovens and a perfect size backyard that doesn’t overwhelm me to maintain. It’s shaped like an L, due to the three-car garage, a style Dean and I talked about building many times after retirement. I knew as soon as my offer was accepted, I was meant to have it as a gift from either Dean or my spiritual family. Sho

Photo by  Trust "Tru" Katsande  on  Unsplash T here seems to be no lack of motivational, self-improvement publicity out in the world lately.   Abraham Hicks, spirituality, posted affirmations on social media, mediums on TV and more, but the one thing I am trying to learn is meditation. My ability to blank my mind and focus on nothing but breathing is a challenge and yet when I can last at minimum of five minutes, I feel the benefit of calmness wash over me.    Zen, Mindfulness, Metta (kind), Mantra, Transcendental, Yoga, Sound, Kundalini…the list goes on there are so many to try, but I always come back to the standard sit and relax pose.   Recently, I was having a sad moment in the gym and  decided to incorporate meditation into my workout. Since I still suffer from grief in some form every day, I found that meditation redirects my energy and grounds my mind very quickly.   I decided to jump on one of the stationary bikes at my local gym in a location where no one

Sometimes I have to wonder what in the hell my dog thinks about all day? C ady is an eleven year old female yellow Labrador and I have had her since she was 3 months old, her birthday being June 30th, 2007.  When I "adopted" her as a puppy, I gifted her to my husband Dean.  He was a dog person, someone who had a dog most of his life and loved them like children.  I, on the other hand, had never had one.  I was a horse person, which I consider much easier than a dog because they don't demand my emotional attention as much. But together, Dean and I got through the early years of potty training, jumping on guests and discipline, well, mostly Dean handled that stuff.  I got to be the fun parent.  HE rubbed her belly, teased her and took care of the poop stuff.  I took her running and hiking when he wasn't around, fed her way too many treats and she drove shotgun on errands with me around town. Since losing my husband, I have struggled with being a single caretak