Widowing Empty Nests

At least! At least!! At least!!!

January 19, 2025 1 Comment

20th January 2019 – Writing Prompt from Megan DevineImage by Julia Grace “In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort […]

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Maybe Mike Was Right All Along

January 19, 2025 2 Comments

16th January 2019 Quite a few years ago I decided “not to do guilt”.  It’s served me well.  At risk of sounding like a psychopath or a narcissist, who also apparently do not “do guilt”, I am sure I have saved hours and days, possibly weeks, of my time. While I can feel less than […]

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Ten Things I Know To Be True

January 19, 2025 2 Comments

Photo Courtesy of Sarah Treanor (streanor.com) One. Mike was one in a million. My life was a million times better with Mike. I have a million more problems without Mike. I have a million fewer resources without Mike.  Mike was a million million good things. His death has meant a million million bad things.  I […]

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Good Grief! Love Hurts

January 19, 2025 2 Comments

Main image courtesy of Sarah Treanor (streanor.com) 17th November 2018 When I was in my mid-20s, a lovely TV series starring Adam Faith and Zoe Wanamaker came out. It was called “Love Hurts”.  The internet tells me it ran from 1992-1994. I don’t really remember anymore what it was all about. A forbidden, messy relationship, […]

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Grief is not contagious… and yet….

January 19, 2025 No Comments

7th November 2018 Grief is not contagious… and yet… It reverberates inside me And outside me Almost invisible But not quite   Truly felt Like contours On a detailed orienteering map   Or soundwaves Invisible Yet felt All over   Grief affects Every thought I think Every feeling I feel Every emotion I experience Every […]

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Eclipsed (again) by the Shock and the Horror

January 19, 2025 No Comments

5th November 2018 When… When will I really “get” that Mike is dead? When will the knowing finally sink in? When will the remembering not punch me full force in the gut? As if I didn’t already know. When will the pavement not open up with a chasmic (?) hole as I wander innocently about […]

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Airports are Emotional Places

January 19, 2025 No Comments

Main photo credit Sarah Treanor (streanor.com) 1st November 2018 – All Saints’ Day. (Where have all the saints gone? Can someone send a few my way please?) I feel like I am rapidly becoming some version of Tom Hanks in “The Terminal”, stuck in the “airport system”, being shunted around from Boarding Gate to Transfer/Service […]

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Despite all my efforting, he’s still dead

January 19, 2025 1 Comment

main photo credits Sarah Treanor streanor.com 29th October 2018 One day last week, I think it was Thursday, I was going through piles of paperwork at home at the kitchen table. Sophia, my new LIPSY (live-in pet sitter) was doing some of her own work at the kitchen table too. Round and round I was […]

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Silent Celebrations

January 19, 2025 No Comments

27 October 2018 I just looked up the definition of the word “Celebration”, not because I don’t know what it means, but because its common, everyday use, seems inadequate. Inadequate in my current life. “The action of celebrating an important day or event”. Also, “A social gathering or enjoyable activity held to celebrate something”. At […]

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Widow Walking in Wild Weather

January 19, 2025 6 Comments

23 September 2018 I wrote a couple of weeks ago about not recognising my life.  Since then I have hiked for 12 big fat full days up and down Corsican mountains on the “GR20 mythique”.  Considered to be the hardest of the French Grandes Randonnées, at 180 km in length and over 10,000 m of […]

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