Tag: Widow

Resolutionary Road

January 1, 2022

It’s been a long time since I picked up my digital pen to write a post for this grief blog.  It certainly isn’t because life is now all kittens and yarn (for any of us!) but mostly because I had lost my thread. Of yarn? More like some prickly, slightly abrasive twine!  Now retired, I feel compelled to pick it up again to share thoughts on this complicated and sometimes puzzling journey.

As we kick 2021 out the door and try desperately to bar the windows, many of us look at this freshly minted New Year as another opportunity, another chance to do (or feel) better.  I am also cautiously hopeful.

And although the rough barbs of grief have blessedly dulled over the past five years, the nubs still catch occasionally on my pantlegs.  

Moving to Virginia more than two years ago was my way of trying to jumpstart a fresh life.  It has helped in many ways.  I am not surrounded by the tangible memories that my husband and I had built together, and now live closer to my siblings.  But I’m self-aware enough to know you can’t shut out feelings like some sort of religious zealot knocking on the door with handfuls of gospel tracts.

A very wise and helpful friend of mine once shared a mantra she espouses to help get through her days, and I have tried my best to adopt it.

“Before you go to bed, think of three things that happened during the day that you are grateful for.  They do not have to be big things.  Then, when you wake up, say to God or to the universe, “Help me, help me, help me.”

So, I attempt to do this when I am mindful.  Last night as I headed to bed well before the finale of New Year’s Eve, I lay in bed and thought, “I have a nice home.  I took a walk today with family and friends in the sunshine.  My thumbs (in the early stages of arthritis) are not bothering me.”

I woke quite early today to rain pelting the window nearest my bed.  I had left it cracked open since it’s been so unseasonably warm in Virginia this December.  I listened to the water hitting the panes for a long time and soon joined along with my own slow-moving waterworks, keenly missing my husband’s warm presence still.  But then I wiped the tears away and mentally hoisted up my big girl pants to complete the other half of the mantra. Given the day, they could also be construed as resolutions, but what is there to lose?

 “Help me to be a better person.  Help me to embrace life, instead of approaching it as something to be endured.  Help me get through this new year feeling more grateful for what I have instead of dwelling on what I have lost.”

Motorcycle musings

I took to the open, albeit local roads last night for a little bike time sandwiched in between the latest bout of rain showers we’ve been experiencing here in New England.

Since a much earlier post about purchasing a motorcycle – my personal “fuck you” to my late husband (she said, with great fondness) I’ve gotten more comfortable riding and so am enjoying it more. You have to remain ever diligent, since you are incredibly exposed when on two wheels. However, I’m glad to say I’m no longer wearing my shoulders as earrings.

I keenly felt the bumps of the road as I unsuccessfully tried to avoid rolling over man-hole covers and sped across defunct railroad tracks. I took in the sweet smell of tobacco as I motored past open barns hung with the drying leaves of future cigar wrappers.

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As a 14-year-old I had worked tobacco one summer sporadically with my best friend Anne. I say “sporadically” because it was grueling hard work, and so sometimes as we walked the mile or so to the farm to catch the bus to the fields, we talked ourselves out of going to work that day. Instead we’d thumb a ride to the neighboring, bucolic town of Somers, CT and spend the day meandering through the woods there.

I don’t know what it was about that town, except that it had a certain magical quality for me and my friends. It was “woodsier” than our town, and had a small but significant mountain for hiking with the reward of a fireman’s tower at the top.

I never guessed those many years ago that I would find myself once again traveling the same roads past the same silent barns. A whole lifetime it seemed, had passed between that time and this one. Anne and I had dreamt of renting a van after high school and traveling ‘cross country. It was not meant to be. I went away to college, and she went to work. In either case, she had found a boyfriend by that time and was ingrained in his life. I was awkwardly stumbling through the corridors of higher education, spending a fair amount of energy on beer and boys.

Anne and I continued to take different roads and have lost touch. Somers is still there. I decide to ride through some of the familiar back roads on my bike. Definitely more “neighborhoody” than woodsy, but it still has some magic left.