Rolling along

"Grieving is like a roller coaster ride."
One day, the worst is over.
The next day, even the next hour, it seems like you've made no progress at all.

So true.

Beauty in each day

"While we are worrying and fretting and feeling sorry for ourselves, life slips away.

I will look around me now, this minute, and see what life holds.

Greet each day as its own gift-or it's own trial if it's that kind of day. But let's not bury the sunshine and beauty of this day under the shadow of a regretted future-about whose nature we can only speculate."-Martha Whitmore Hickman

Unafraid at last

"The spirit of tenderness, of love, will not desert you. You will find that it has become part of you, rising from within yourself; and because of it you are no longer fearful of loneliness, of the dark, because death, the last enemy, has been overcome."-Daphne Du Maurier

Keep moving forward

"Bit by bit, we need to loosen our hold on a past we cannot keep and get on with the life we have."-Martha Whitmore Hickman

Another sort of milestone

Church try #1 many months ago: decided to try going back to my Catholic roots so went to an early mass. Got sad looking around at all the happy families and left early.

Church try #2 a few months ago: decided to try a Methodist church because I knew some friends who attended there. While looking for a parking space I saw a friend and his wife walking into church holding hands. I started to tear-up and drove home.

Church try #3 today: decided to go back to the Christian non-denominational church we attended for almost the ten years before T's death. I cried while the lights were dim and songs were being sung because I had flashbacks of being there with T...but stuck it out. What followed was an excellent sermon on faith, on not being afraid and the importance of being out of your comfort zone at times to encounter things and people you would have otherwise not encountered.

It was as if Pastor Joel was talking to me...just as it had always seemed like he was talking to T and me.

The homestead

Shrines have their place, but they are poor backgrounds for life in the present moment-Martha Whitmore Hickman.

I love my home and neighborhood and EVERYTHING it has stood for in terms of my life with T and in raising our children except that T collapsed in our home on 6/18/2015 while watching TV with Ellie and me.

My home is a shrine, jamed full of mostly wonderful memories but that one memory will never be forgotten.

T's gone and both of our children are in college.

I'm pondering selling my home.

Getting out and about

I'm going to start getting out more.

I'm able to talk to others now and not tear up when they ask me how I'm doing or when they mention how they are still so sorry about our loss.

I even referred to T as my "late-wife" today while talking with someone and didn't feel too awkward. It was only the second time I had been able to use that term.

I'm still uplifted most days by reading "Healing After Loss-Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief" and the Bible nightly.

These last 16 months have been challenging and life changing on so many levels.

I still so miss Tori.

I've just finally realized that being alone most every evening and all weekend, with just my dog Dwight, is increasingly depressing. Dwight's great. It's just that our conversations are always one-sided.

I need to do more than just work, pay bills, take care of Dwight, keep up with the house and errands and go to the YMCA.

I need to socialize more, travel again.

I'm going to try.