Making Memories
April 28, 2024 No CommentsToday, 16 July 2018, is a year since we had Mike’s Celebration of Life – on 16th July 2017. Yesterday, Sunday 15th, felt more like the anniversary itself, as last year, 16th July was a Sunday. So much of that day remains etched in my brain, memories wired into neural pathways, or something like that. […]
Read MoreThe End of an Era
April 28, 2024 2 CommentsThis afternoon we said goodbye to Iryna from the Czech Republic. Iryna has been our au pair for most of the past school year. With her departure closes an enormously important and very long chapter in our family’s life: that of having live-in au pairs. We have had au pairs for 16 years! Ever since […]
Read MoreThe Body Remembers
April 28, 2024 No CommentsOn Sunday I was aware to the day, hour and minute when Mike died 15 months prior. Today I remember my little brother Edward who died 30 months ago today – 10 Jan 2016. Same day as David Bowie. My mind does weird things with dates. But really it’s my body that knows. I don’t […]
Read MoreWho am I and Why am I here?
April 28, 2024 1 CommentWelcome to my blog – Widowing Empty Nests. A space for me, Emma, to put some of the writing I do about my new life, a life I didn’t expect, didn’t want, but is. In the space of less than a year, I went from being married to the man I had known and loved […]
Read MoreFour Funerals and Two Weddings
April 28, 2024 No CommentsIt doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it? I met a man recently. Let’s call him Fred. He’s 51 (like me), he lost the love of his life (like me), he has 3 teenage kids (like me), who are all over the map, metaphorically (like me) and though not physically (unlike me but hey, […]
Read More2018. Where my life goes on, as do others’ lives. New lives come to be, and yet other lives end
April 28, 2024 No Comments1st January 2018 – aka The first day of a new year in my lifetime with Mike not in it I have been training people not to express frivolous platitudes such as, “2018 will be better than 2017”. I hate receiving memes and feel-good quotes and pictures of clocks wiping out 2017 with its “difficult” […]
Read MoreRazor Shells – Warning to Bathers: Take Care of Your Own Feet
April 28, 2024 No Comments16th September 2017 When I was a young child, I spent three years living in Swansea in South Wales. My mum, who had five kids all in single digits at the time, and whose energy was probably solely focused on our collective sanity, took us to a beach every single day – come rain or […]
Read MoreFirsts
April 28, 2024 No Comments14th May 2017 I have been noticing “Firsts”. First times I do something since Mike died, or even since Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – still only a little over 6 months ago. Things that were routine, weekly, sometimes even daily. I feel like I have noticed them all. Some feel massively important and […]
Read MoreGrief Part Three: How do I integrate Grief anyway?
April 28, 2024 No Comments6th May 2017 For the past three days I have been in Belgirate on Lago Maggiore doing Part One of the Advanced Programme of Systemic Constellations with Francesco Pimpinelli. The training has been about ways of working systemically with aspects of ourselves – patterns of behaviour, inner conflicts, shameful attributes, unacknowledged powers, character traits, inner […]
Read MoreGrief Part Two: Widowing is Lonely Work
April 28, 2024 No Comments24th April 2017 One of my nieces uses the term “Adulting” on her Facebook posts. I like the term. Even at my grand old age of 50 I comment on how grown up some of my friends have become – e.g., “your home is so grown up” (i.e., clean, dangerously light-coloured furniture, belongings that look […]
Read More