Life

Looking back over the last two years, I am able to see the progression in my family’s grief processing. It’s not always clear while you are in it, but looking back you can see distinct shifts. The first year was us trying to breathe. Trying to work through not only the grief of losing Jeremy, but also the trauma that we experienced. During that year, I learned how to recognize and differentiate between the two. There were times that my brain, randomly would release a trauma based memory and I would be side swiped by it. It would undo me. I realized how much my brain had taken in and had stuffed in order to keep going. Unfortunately, after his death and the immediate chaos that seemed to follow due to the pandemic, resources that would have been available, especially to my kids, were not. So we limped along, doing…

0 Comments

The Holidays

It's hard to believe that it has been almost 10 months since Jeremy left us and 2020 started it colossal spiral downward. I  have had people asking how I am doing and so I thought I would check in with everyone. Plus I am finding sharing my heart with you all here, is healing. It helps me put words and clarity to some of the thoughts and feeling that seem to be swirling about in my heart and head.  I have been dreading this season, not wanting to walk it, but knowing the only way to healing is to walk through it. Maybe even limping through it.  Maybe even crawling through it some days. But in order for healing, I…we… have to move through it. Embracing what we can and recognizing what we just do not have the capacity for and being ok with that. Moving into last year’s Christmas…

0 Comments

What’s in a Picture

I love this picture. And it isn’t because, having just left Colorado where humidity is non-existent, my hair was on point. There is another reason. Or rather, reasons. We were driving from Denver and heading to the Grand Tetons in the northwest of Wyoming. We had just gotten into Wyoming and I realized that I hadn’t put the actual campground’s location into in my GPS. I had just plugged in Grand Tetons. Um…the Grand Tetons are kinda, well, grand. I probably should have been more specific. I realized my mistake and cleared out my directions only to then realize I had made a bigger mistake. My data wasn’t working (I realized later I had hit a button that had turned it off) and there was no cell service. I could not pull up ANY directions. So there we were… in Wyoming, headed in the right direction, but completely without directions.…

4 Comments

Happy Father’s Day, Jeremy

Today is the first Father's Day my kids spend without their dad. I am not sure if they even realize it is Father's Day. I will probably be sure to bring it up because maybe with our day of travel and it being a distraction, it won't feel as awful?  Maybe it will help getting this first out of the way When we knew Jeremy was going home on hospice, I was sitting there talking to him about the things that had impacted me about him, the things I loved about him. I shared with him how I was proud of him and the father he had been. That our kids would never doubt for an instant of his love. A little while later when I asked him what he would want to me to share at his memorial service, he said with a smile, "That." So below is the…

4 Comments

A Mountain Called Grief

A week or so after Jeremy’s memorial service, I decided I needed to take the kids to the mountains for a hike. It was something that Jeremy and I loved to do. He loved the mountains. When it came to vacation time, he would have opted for the mountains rather than the beach every time. I tried to make our big vacations at the beach, but weekend getaways were in the mountains for him.  Hiking didn’t happen too much over the last 14 years, just because the littles were, well, little.  Our hikes or rather walks were usually easy when we ventured out as a whole family. We were just starting to come to the age with all the kids that we could do little more adventurous hikes because they could keep up. No more having to carry anyone halfway through our excursions or listening to an excessive amount of…

20 Comments

Grief

I get asked a lot how I am doing and I know some of them are not just a polite, “How are you doing?” but rather a “Dee, my heart hurts for you guys and I want to make it all better for you in some way and I don’t know how. And I really want to make sure you are OK” type of how are you doing? I know by social media appearances I am doing OK. I am getting up every morning and I am getting stuff done. I am posting the successes and the happy moments. But I am not posting how that every morning even if I don’t see it coming, I cry. Or every night, I am sure to have some tears well up. And that there are several times during the day that I am hit with it all and I crumble.  I see…

5 Comments

Isolation

I have had so many thoughts going through my mind lately as I have been home, trying to stay busy as the world is mentally and physically spinning from the COVID 19 pandemic. I have had a few people contact me and tell me that they are so glad that we had Jeremy’s service when we did, because it was after that weekend that things started ramping up.  I have to say though, that I am more grateful that sick Jeremy was spared this. I think about how I no longer would be allowed to take him in to his procedures or be with him through his treatments or even stay with him in the hospital. I know that would have killed me and honestly him too. I know how important it was for him to have me with him. I was his voice, quite literally. I knew how to…

6 Comments