Widow Chick

I don't know the woman who writes the amazing blog called "Widow Chick" but I feel as if I do.

 

She (aka Catherine) is to-the-core honest and humorous in writing about her daily travels as a widow and a woman who is trying to be Mom and Dad to three young children.  I regularly read her blog and it always gives me a boost!

Widow Chick's Husband

 

Yesterday she wrote a particularly touching post about an important anniversary in her life and I would like to share it with you because she is right on point in expressing her thoughts and feelings about what happened.

 

Please read this link which will take you to Widow Chick's blog post:

http://widowchick.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-6th-anniversary-to-yall-its-just.html

God bless you Widow Chick!

Finding The Words

I think the hardest thing about writing is writing.

 

                                               ~ Journalist, Author and Screenwriter Nora Ephron

During Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, tributes were paid to those in the film industry who passed away in the last year.  Nora Ephron most certainly was a bright twinkling star in her own right and the producers of the show chose to display the above quote in her honor.

Ephron was a keen observer of American culture and especially the stormy and romantic relationships between men and women.  Like most things Ephron wrote about she is spot on about trying to write. 

 

Writing is trying to get the words together in one sentence to reveal a truth.

Writing this blog for my readers is a wonderful, sometimes magical thing.  It has helped me process the grief of losing my husband and, in turn,  I do hope that it has helped others of you out there also trying to make sense of a loss whether it is a husband, a wife, a child, a parent or a good friend.  I never want anyone to feel isolated or alone in their despair.

 

Writing is something I feel I have to do and each time I sit down at the computer keyboard to write to you I try to do my very best.  Sometimes I feel I hit the bar of accomplishing what I set out to do and other days I wish I had a better brain so that something more insightful would have hit the page.

 

I enjoy writing but it also can be frustrating to find the right words to convey what I am feeling.  There is nothing more frustrating than staring at the blank screen and you know what you want to say but just don't know how to say it.  Writing can sometimes feel like trying to nail jello to the wall: elusive and messy.

 

Writing in particular about grief and a person's ability to bounce back from a loss is a tricky mission.  When I post my thoughts, I want to explain how shocked, how painful, how alone, how outside yourself you feel when someone you loves dies and how you feel totally lost.  But I don't want to sound whiney, dramatic or self-absorbed. 

 

Grief is a personal subject, almost intimate, yet it also univeral.

 

Whether you want to or not, at  some point in your life you will experience grief.  I can't say what it will be like for you or how long it will last because everyone's grief is different.

 

I also want to let you know that through my blog posts that with the passage of time, and it has been nine years for me since my husband died, the journey improves.  Step by step, day by day, you move forward.  It is slow and some days you may not feel the will to go on but that probably means you need to rest and recoup to garner strength.  You may not know where you are going but the act of moving helps you work through your jumbling emotions.

 

I have found that it takes positive energy, support from friends and family and a healthy way of living.  I know you will find your way.  It will reveal itself to you.

 

Thank you for reading Cry, Laugh Heal!!!  My readers are the best and I love hearing from you!!!

The Big 300

 

 

Today marks my 300th post.

It's a personal milestone and truly a huge deal for me.  Big thanks go out to all of my family (especially my son, Ryan, who is my biggest blog cheerleader), friends and readers out there in the internet world who read Cry, Laugh, Heal.   You give me more than you know and I read and respond to all of the great feedback I receive!  And I hope to receive lots more feedback as I continue to write about the incredibly silly, sometimes sad and mostly spontaneous events that happen to me on my new journey as a widow and single mother.

I thought it would be appropriate to go back to the beginning, to the very first post I wrote launching Cry, Laugh Heal in December 2010.  This post is special to me because I had no idea what I was doing -- not that I really know now what I am doing -- but back then I really had no idea where Cry, Laugh Heal was going and what the reaction to it would be.  I just decided to jump in and try it and see what would happen.

 

When I read that first post today, I see a different person, a person still yearning to go backwards to the time when my husband was alive and well.  I still feel that way sometimes but now the feeling comes less frequently and not as strong as it did then. 

I definitely still feel passionately about changing the way people think about grief and trying to help people as they try to rebuild their lives after the loss of a loved one.  That's the reason I started Cry, Laugh, Heal: to open up the subject of grief and it's resulting resilience.  Grief is a natural reaction to a loved one's death and eventually it will happen to you whether you like it or not.  It doesn't help anyone when we make grief a taboo topic.

Everyone's grief journey is unique and certainly full of ups and downs.  I have found that for most people, the passage of time tends to lessen the waves of pain and eventually, the loss becomes less raw and more manageable.  One day, after many years, I had what is called a light bulb moment and finally realized that my husband would never want me or our son to be miserable.  I can't tell you how or why it happened, but it finally clicked in my brain that he would have wanted us to heal and find happiness.

To my great surprise, I have discovered that an inner strength does slowly build with the taking of each day as it comes to me.

I hope you enjoy reading my first post:

Clothes To You

December 23, 2010 

With the today's launch of Cry, Laugh, Heal, I’ll start by sharing an unexpected moment that helped me cope with my husband’s death.

Grieving can take you down some unpredictable paths -- sometimes revealing humor where you least expect it.

I learned the importance of having a sense of humor early in life while growing up in a large Irish Catholic family. If you couldn’t laugh at yourself, then someone else would imitate you until you did. So laughing and making jokes about life’s bumps in the road was part of my DNA, an integral part of my spirit, and it served me well until my husband died.

Suddenly, I found myself in this new role of being a middle-aged widow and single mother and I felt as though I was outside of myself performing some sort of high-wire act. On the one hand I was trying to move forward and support my young son, while on the other hand I was completely numb. As much as my family and friends supported me, I felt as if no one really got my “spin cycle” of emotions and what I was trying to handle.

I decided I needed to find others who had also lost loved ones and talk to them about how they managed to put the pieces back together and go on with their lives. I started going to group support sessions at Sibley Hospital’s bereavement group called Widowed Persons Outreach (WPO) and it was there that I found the emotional resources and freedom to talk about ALL the issues surrounding my husband’s death -- even the things that sound really irreverent and crazy to other people.

Talking about the emptiness, the surreal feelings, the memories and the loss of future memories was exhausting but therapeutic. But the best thing that came out of these emotional dialogues was that I unexpectedly rediscovered my sense of humor.

We were talking about what happens when you have buried your loved one yet their belongings – their clothes, their food, their books, most of what they owned – is still all around you. I jumped into the discussion and began talking about what happened to me one day when I was in the house all by myself. That particular day, I really felt like I was falling apart and all I wanted was some kind of contact with my husband.

I opened my cell phone, walked around the room and stared at it, thinking there actually was the possibility that something might happen -- a ring, a text, a signal of some sort from my husband. I know it sounds strange but when you are in the throes of deep grief and your loss is so raw, you are just hurting and not being logical.

I closed my eyes and imagined that he was hugging me. Then I opened the hall closet and took one of his tweed jackets off the hanger. I put it on and of course I immediately felt better. I smelled him in that precious jacket and I imagined his arms around me. I was comforted and torn up at the same time.

As I talked about this experience to my group, I said to the husky man sitting across from me, “Trying on his clothes really made me feel a lot better. Haven’t you ever done the same thing?”

Without missing a beat, he said with a completely straight face, “I gotta tell you. I have never, ever once thought about wearing my wife’s clothes.”

I totally burst out laughing. Something about the serious expression on his face, his delivery and the mental picture of this big guy in a small pastel sweater made me laugh so hard I couldn’t get my breath. And everyone else started laughing too so I knew that we had hit on something close to people’s hearts.

It was then that I knew life was going to be a little softer. Nothing was going to be great or wonderful; just slightly more bearable. For a long time, I didn’t think it was okay to laugh. I wasn’t supposed to be enjoying myself and besides, nothing was funny to me anyway.

There is a very thin line between crying and laughing. Many times you find yourself doing one of them and all of a sudden you are doing the other. But a good cry or a good laugh can make you feel as if a huge weight has been lifted and that’s what this blog is here to do.

Work Can Be Rewarding

Work itself is the reward.  If I choose challenging work it will pay me back with interest.  At least I'll be interested even if nobody else is.  And this attempt for excellence is what sustains the most well lived and satisfying, successful lives.

                                                  ~ Meryl Streep

I am a big believer in working hard.  Besides getting a lot accomplished, working hard makes you challenge your brain and your talents to the best of your ability.  Dirty things become clean and disorganized piles of papers and clothes become organized.  Working hard can also give your mind something else to think about when you are processing your grief.

When my husband died a number of years ago, I continued to work outside the home because I needed to support myself and my son and it also kept me moving forward.  It brought structure into my daily routine at a time when most other things were constantly changing.  There were times when it was jarring; especially when it was time to leave work and go home.  For a split second while walking to my car, I would always think about calling my husband to tell him I was leaving and then I would remember that he was no longer here.

But work continued to be cathartic for me during that time and I was very happy to have it.  Given the ups and downs of the economy in the past several years, I'm still thankful to have a job.  I know there are some people who take their work to an extreme and lose themselves in it after they have experienced the loss of a loved one.  This is easy to do because you don't want to think about what is really going on in your life and constantly working helps you block the pain.  For my son's sake, I was careful to make sure I didn't go that way.

That said, it's important to do something you really love or something that makes you feel as though you are always learning something new.  I have a job where I work in an office downtown and I am paid to do that work.  But I am not paid to write this blog.  I write this blog because I enjoy it and because I need to write it.  I started Cry, Laugh, Heal in December 2010 to help people become more comfortable talking about grief and how you can rebuild your life after losing a loved one. 

People can tell if you approach your work with a certain amount of pride or if you could care less about what you do. I hope you can tell how much I love my readers and how much thought I put into trying to help others who are also on a grief journey.  I never want anyone to feel as though they are alone or that there is no hope for the future.  There is always hope!!!!!!!

Whether your work is mental, physical or a combination of both, it can feel so good to put in a hard day's work.  Once in awhile I do wonder what it would be like if I didn't have to work.  Of course, it would be great, but I would still need to find something meaningful to do.  I know I would still write Cry, Laugh Heal.

As the wise and wonderful Meryl Streep says, work can be a reward in itself especially when you achieve that "good tired" feeling.

It's a Dot Com!

YEAH!! I finally figured it out!

Cry, Laugh, Heal is now a dot com!

I am so happy to announce that my Baby Blog has matured and become an Adult Dot Com!

To my wonderful, fantastic readers who give me great feedback and support, I thank you so much!!!!!!!!

Now you can type in http://www.crylaughheal.com/ and you will arrive at the same blog that you have been enthusiastically supporting for the last 10 months.

Please continue to pass around the link and tell friends and family to "like" the Cry, Laugh, Heal Facebook page.

MANY THANKS!!!!

Cry, Laugh, Heal Has A New Look!

 

 

 



Check out the new look of Cry, Laugh, Heal and let me know what you think.

I re-designed the blog to give it a fresher feel.  I hope you find it easier to read and more pleasing to the eye.

I truly appreciate everyone's ongoing support and feedback.

Please pass along the good word about Cry, Laugh, Heal.

Follow Cry, Laugh, Heal on Facebook at www.facebook.com/crylaughheal or sign up on this blog page http://www.crylaughheal.blogspot.com/ to become a follower.

Thank you to my wonderful readers!