My Journey Continues

The benefits of having a positive male role model, a consistent disciplinarian, and a high-energy roughhousing companion on their route to seeking professional and family success in adulthood are frequently discussed in relation to sons. But there's more to it than that. Fathers have an interesting and sometimes surprising impact on the lives of their young adult daughters. The position of a father is absolutely irreplaceable, and a solid father-child relationship offers significant long-term advantages. While many people understand that this is true for young boys, the value of father-daughter connections should not be underestimated. In terms of narrative, many people can attest to the fact that a father's enduring effect on a child's life cannot be refuted. Because of the lack of a father's affection in their life, many people have suffered from emotions of abandonment and poor self-esteem. To cope with the sorrow of fatherlessness, some have turned to drugs, alcohol...

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. Mayb...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

I have taken a hiatus from writing as of late.  Mainly because it forces me to delve deeply into my feelings and that causes me pain.  I so wanted my trip to Spain to be a pivotal turning point in my life.  I had tricked myself into believing that for a short while, but reality has a way of forcing its presence.  I grieved hard the last six months and was spiraling further before I left, luckily the vacation in itself was an energy distraction and helped set me back on life's course.  Unfortunately, it did not last.  Life has been a whirlwind of selling my home and rental property, buying a new place to live and packing.  I took a kickboxing class and joined another online grief group.  I continue to pump out drawings in my spare time and watch a lot of movies on Hulu.  The days blur together and I have those moments of "what is the point of living?"  There is boredom of life in grief. I most recently purchased a large bottle of ...

I most recently took a break from my life and went on a trip to Spain.   After severe grief for 783 days since Dean passed, 762 days since Dad passed and 156 days since Tia left my world, I thought a vacation might change the energy of my chronic anguish.   I have to say, leaving town put my emotional state on pause, with occasional bursts of tears that I hid behind my sunglasses and from well intentioned eyes.   The excitement of visiting a country of my heritage was a distraction and I crossed one more thing off my bucket list.   I didn’t intentionally block my feelings, but focused on all that was new and exciting around me. I wanted to feel alive and happy.   The visit to my father’s ancestor’s homeland was amazing and magical.   But after eighteen days, I was ready to come home. As I merged back into my normal routine, I was frustrated that sadness had seeped back into my soul.   I felt I had turned a corner on my emotional ...

W hat no one told me after losing my husband to brain cancer, was that as a widow, I would go through a (for lack of better word) horny phase. Yes, I said it. Women over fifty still get randy! It was a few months after his passing when the longing for my deceased husbands tangible touch, scent, taste and feel was still in the yearning phase. I would meditate to remember his essence and what it was like to be with him. That would get me all fired up with nowhere to go. It was too early to try and date, because once around other men, it was still repulsive to think of being with someone new. Of course, there is guilt about being loyal and faithful…to a man that is no longer alive. I know, its not rational. Nothing much is when it comes to grief. Flash forward over two years…and here I am. Ready as I can be, trying out the dating scene. Everything is different. The texting, online presence, the expectations and worst of all, the catfishing. The fake profiles are everywhere,...

Since death descended into my life I never dealt with the emotion, anger.  When I sank low into depression, I was told by my therapist that it was OK to be angry.   "Get mad!  Let it out! Scream, swear or punch a wall."  She said. "The thing is...I don't feel mad." I countered.  "I know my daughter and husband didn't want to die, so how can I be angry?  Its not their fault." But two years later, waves of anger are just starting to overtake me randomly when I least expect it.  The burning feeling of white, hot, infuriating indignation washes into my brain and numbs my face and lips. The smallest thing sets me off and I will clench my teeth together and scream inside my brain.  Visibly shaking, mentally yelling. Silence. Tears...always tears, rolling down my face. Sometimes, if I'm home alone, my body will freeze and my mouth will howl as hard and as loud as it can until my lungs hurt.  No one can hear me and I don't feel better....

One of the emotions that most recently floods my being on a random basis is loneliness. I may choose to fight or embrace it depending on my mood. Loneliness is described in Wikipedia as an unpleasant emotion brought on by a response to isolation.  I don't FEEL isolated and I've never been REALLY lonely before, but I am still trying to peel the skin off how it makes me truly feel.  Every morning I wake up to silence and pause for a moment to listen.  I hear the air inhaling and exhaling from my body, the rain or wind gently blowing against the window, or the in-explainable sounds that a house makes as it breathes.  I never used to notice these vibrations in time, listening instead for my husbands puttering in the kitchen as he made coffee or emptied the dishwasher.  The lack of sound that another living body is near me, reminds me that I am alone and he is gone. Silence, in itself, tells me to listen to my own voice, inside my head.  Who am I?...

My grief is constantly morphing and shaping itself into this omnipotent, invisible force that always has presence around me. My mind is the creator but I have no control of my emotions once I have manifested that sorrow.  The loss is real but unseen, and no one else can feel the pain. That, in itself, is the isolation in which I live. Members of the grief club do not go around wearing an equivalent to Hester’s scarlet A on their chest. I am part of an invisible club. Lately, I stay busy with friends and errands, managing to go several days feeling what I guess I can call, normal…happy, but then inevitably, I am alone, and I remember.  The visceral pain hits my gut and floods my body and brain with an ache of longing so intense, I can’t catch my breath.  Tears are my only outlet and stream forth unwanted and wet. They are messy, snotty and tiresome. Early on, my weeping was silent, sporadic, and personal. I seldom shared them with anyone, because ...