Tag: widow blog

2012 YEAR IN REVIEW

This has been a big and profound year for me. The thick, intense “widow fog” has dissolved.

This year was about becoming more present and moving forward without Tim. You can’t avoid grief. You have to go through it.

It was full of emotional happy highs and lonely, deep lows. But I realized that I wasn’t completely “on my own.” That my faith in God is true, and he’s been here with me this whole time. It was also a year filled with healing and transformation.

Here are 4 words that sum up my year:

01. Connection – Forming friendships with several strong, spiritual, and confident women that really helped me grow “on my own” and believe in myself. Fall, Hayley, Dana, Jill and Sorrel. You ladies have been my rock. I love you so much and I can’t tell you how much your soul sisterhood has meant to me.

02. Faith – I been more vocal about my beliefs. I’ve been wary of sharing my faith, but I’ve realized that I shouldn’t be fearful to share what it means to me, and the reason why I’m optimistic and curious for what the future holds. I believe in love and God gave me that love. He took my soul mate from my arms. But I don’t blame God. All I can do is have faith that there was a reason he needed Tim up in heaven. And that God is counting on me to recognize his purpose for my life. That I need to take responsibility for living and not dwelling on the sadness. The medium session I had in April was profound – getting messages from both Tim and God gave me clarity on my new journey. I highly recommend seeing a medium to help connect with your loved one.

03. Slowing down – Grief is very fatiguing. And I think in today’s world, we try to accomplish so many things with high expectations and its usually unfair and unrealistic. First of all, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever the time to grieve. We live in a non-stop, hurry-up, get-it done now, add it to my hotlist, firedrill-kind-of-world that expects microwave results. And how does one fit grief and healing into overloaded schedules? You can’t.

I didn’t realize how intense grief can be until the evenings and weekends, when things slowed down, and I was alone. With my thoughts. I’d shake and cry so hard, that I finally came to a crossroads. That I needed to take care of myself.

Quitting my job has allowed me the time to heal my heart, spend time with loved ones, have fun and organically play on my new creative path. Working “on my own” has been rewarding and overwhelming. I’ll share more in my next post.

04. Rediscovery– Allowing myself to do things I love. That make me happy. Things that I used to enjoy with Tim. Going to new restaurants. Dancing. Going to live music. Traveling. Laughing so hard it hurts. Shopping. Cooking. Helping others. Stepping away from the computer.

Here’s a look at some of my favorite memories of this year. These photos give me so much hope that 2013 will be even more fulfilling, fun, creative and filled with love. I will never stop missing Tim, but I believe he’s proud of what I’ve accomplished this year.

So, I do have some exciting things planned for 2013. And I will share more with you.

I also want to thank all of you for following and reading this blog. This has been therapy for me. This is my creative outlet. To share what’s on my mind. What inspires and empowers me. And what gives me hope and delight, as I recreate my life without Tim. My hope is that you will discover that you are worth it. That no matter what your circumstance is, that life really is worth living. That you are awesome. And beautiful. And have great shoes, too! (hah!)

So I thank you so much for visiting my lil quirky blog. You rock my world.

December 31, 2012
HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Here’s a fun memory from Halloween 2008. We had our good neighbor friends— Rod, Emily, Matt and Chris—over to our place for a night of pumpkin carving. My newspaper-covered dining room was covered in pumpkin guts and seeds, and we were laughing and drinking. It was a simple night, but an awesome time.

Tim, of course, had his bag of tricks—a special set of delicate carving knives and tools that only a chef or wood worker would have— and we weren’t allowed to use! Hah! But even if we had those knives we could have never come up with something so creative.

October 31, 2012
SHARE + INSPIRE + EMPOWER

After telling my therapist that I took photos of random hearts I found traveling through Europe, she told me about this amazing San Francisco artist, Page Hodel, who creates these beautiful and symbolic hearts.

Page and her soul mate Madelene found perfect true love — the kind where the universe comes alive. Every Monday Page created a heart, constructed from a variety of materials, such as berries, clothespins, nails, etc, on Madelene’s doorstep so she would go out the door to work Monday morning and begin her week with a reminder of how much Page loved her. Tragically, Madelene was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2006, and died four months later, and less than a year after she and Page met.

Page told Madelene before she passed that she would continue to make her a heart every Monday for the rest of her life, in honor of their beautiful love.

“I knew no matter how sad I felt I could ALWAYS make Madelene a heart. It always made me feel better.”

True love embraces the world, and Page’s art is testimony to its enduring faith.

Check out this link, Mondays Hearts for Madelene to receive Page’s weekly heart creations and continue the giving of love, by sharing the hearts and link with others.

October 23, 2012
HAPPY WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Today I will celebrate what would have been our sixth-year wedding anniversary. This day is bittersweet for me. It doesn’t hurt from the depths of my soul, like last year, but I mis him, still wish I could bring Tim back, so I could wrap my arms super tight around him, give him a long kiss and hear his laugh.

I’m farther along on this new chapter, but my love for Tim will endure until I see him again. I am so excited for that day. And I know he is too. I actually imagine our meeting in heaven to be like this above photo. I might look older, heavier, and with more wrinkles, but this is my vision.

Because our marriage and love was so strong, I’ll be celebrating and honoring Tim today. I loved being his wife, and I know he loved being a husband. We both have parents that are still together and we joked that the only thing that would separate us would be death. And God knows why this marriage was cut short.

To celebrate our wedding day, I’m going to take Ollie for a good beach run and pamper myself. I was organizing things and found a gift certificate our friends/neighbors had gifted to us for a “couples” massage. Tim had helped them with their wedding reception, he did their food and coordinated things, etc.

I decided this is what the universe telling me to do. After I take Ollie for his run and clean him up, I’ll go to the spa and celebrate our “couples” massage by myself, but with him in spirit. And I’ll do other rituals to honor and show my love.

My heart smiles remembering this day and Tim. I thank Tim for asking me to be his wife. I feel so blessed to have had a 8 robust years together. Just wishing I could change the circumstance.

Tim’s life serves as a reminder to us to take big bites out of life, to give it our best effort and embrace the opportunities, to enjoy being in the moment.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever meet anyone so honest. He would say things that everyone was thinking but scared to, but how he said things made the difference. You always knew his intention came from genuine love.

As I celebrate today, I’m also stretching my heart. Because I’m ready and open to find new love. And I know Tim doesn’t like me being alone and I hope he’s guiding things for my next mate.

And instead of being sad and frustrated at this circumstance I can’t change, I’d like to share photos from our wedding day. This day was one of the best ever. I was so calm and relaxed, just so ready and eager to spend the rest of my life with Tim. The beautiful part about weddings is that they bring so many great friends and family together. I’m so happy to have shared this day with so many people we both love.

And that’s the one thing I’ve learned going through this journey. That we all need love. The love from our family, friends and our soul mate is the only thing we really need. And it’s the only thing that carries on after we pass, not physical objects.

Enjoy the photos and memories. Lots of love and hugs to all and especially to my shugar, Tim. xoxo

October 15, 2012