feeling:grief Archives - If You Give A Girl A Homestead

Three Words

When Jeremy was first diagnosed and we shared it publicly with everyone, his mentor from his teenage years reached out to him and shared something that Jeremy held on to throughout all of this. His mentor said that when his wife was going through cancer, she had said she didn’t want her pain to be wasted. This statement resonated with Jeremy and he told me on several occasions that that was what he wanted. He didn’t want his pain wasted. And I think by many of you allowing me to share the pain and hurt but yet the hope and the light in all this allowed for that. I spoke to a dear friend a couple days after Jeremy’s passing and she said that she had been shocked to hear that Jeremy was going home on hospice and that only a few short days later that he was gone. She…

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August 24, 2022

Uncategorized

They Will Be Called Oaks

The last couple of weeks leading up to the two year anniversary of Jeremy's death, I have been flooded with memories of that January and February of 2020. The things that lead up to February 13. I've thought of conversations that Jeremy and I had in the hospital room after we knew he would be going home on hospice. They consisted of talking through a lot of practical things, like what truck I would need since he wasn’t going to be around to take care of our older truck. However, we also talked about unfulfilled dreams, like getting a camper and doing more camping trips with the kids or taking a trip out west with them. And we talked about the table that he wouldn’t build. Ever since we had moved onto the farm, we had discussed him building a three-plank farm table that was long enough to fit many…

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February 21, 2022

Daily Life

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…

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February 3, 2022

About the Homestead / Daily Life

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…

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December 9, 2020

Daily Life / Travel

13th

Dates. People observe them as markers to life events. Birthdays, first meetings, first dates, job changes, house buying, sobriety, weddings, deaths, national and global tragedies. There is something about the marking of time with those life events that remind us of joy or pain or even a shift that occurs within us. For me, that day is the 13th. It was Friday, the 13th , that I sat at a picnic table trying to get a hold of Jeremy knowing he was in the hospital and they had just done a CT scan. I knew it was bad. I had known since Labor Day that something was wrong. I had a field trip to Williamsburg planned for the kids and I was not sure if I should still go. He ended up going to the doctor before I left because I felt so uneasy about going. He went in and she did…

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September 13, 2020

About the Homestead / Daily Life / Travel

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…

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June 21, 2020

About the Homestead / Daily Life / Travel

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…

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May 11, 2020

About the Homestead / Daily Life

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…

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April 16, 2020

Jeremy's Cancer Journey

Thank You

All the guests have gone home and today I am trying to figure out what life is going to look like now. No worries. I am not demanding a lot of myself and am taking it easy but still realize that there needs to be some normalcy for the sake of my kids. What normal looks like? I have no idea. We are taking this week easy and will get back to school and activities next week but in the meantime I am trying to get my ducks in a row. First, I want to give a big shout out and thank you to my dear friend, Leslie. She came down from NY a few days earlier than everyone else and jumped in and took care of so much for me. She was my list maker and enforcer. She even had on her list, “Keep on task.” I feel like…

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March 3, 2020

Jeremy's Cancer Journey

Hope

I was talking to my sister a couple weeks back and she made reference to her cancer five years ago. She said that hers really hadn't been that bad especially compared to Jeremy's. I stopped her and told her that all cancer is bad and shouldn't be minimalized. She agreed but then said that all cancer is bad but Jeremy's has been cruel. I had to agree with her. His has been very cruel. It hit hard and fast and has been relentless and destructive. We knew from the very beginning that he was facing a formidable opponent. We are continually met with shock and dismay from people ( mostly medical) when they find out that Jeremy was just diagnosed in September. The destruction of the type of cancer he has is shocking. But despite what it has been doing to him, Jeremy has fought hard... Fought hard to gain…

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February 18, 2020