Widowing Empty Nests

The Body Remembers

November 3, 2024 No Comments

On 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 […]

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Who am I and Why am I here?

November 3, 2024 1 Comment

Welcome 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 […]

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Four Funerals and Two Weddings

November 3, 2024 No Comments

It 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, […]

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2018. Where my life goes on, as do others’ lives. New lives come to be, and yet other lives end

November 3, 2024 No Comments

1st 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” […]

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Razor Shells – Warning to Bathers: Take Care of Your Own Feet

November 3, 2024 No Comments

16th 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 […]

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Firsts

November 3, 2024 No Comments

14th 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 […]

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Grief Part Three: How do I integrate Grief anyway?

November 3, 2024 No Comments

6th 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 […]

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Grief Part Two: Widowing is Lonely Work

November 3, 2024 No Comments

24th 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 […]

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Overwhelm

November 3, 2024 No Comments

20th April 2017 “Adminalation” – that’s a cross between Admin and Annihilation. Megan went back to the UK last night. Julia’s been gone on an exotic holiday for a few days. So it’s just Ben and me now for a bit. Having had some pretty unstructured days recently, I thought I’d put a bit of […]

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Grief Part One: I Don’t Much Like This Widowing Thing

November 3, 2024 No Comments

17th April 2017 My first post in over 18 months, following the deaths of my sweet friend Don on 11th September 2015, my youngest brother Edward, on 10th January 2016, and my husband Mike, on 8th April 2017.  This is going to be raw.  It’s purely personal, not much to do with my core work, except that […]

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