Thanks for all the fish....

The time has come for me to step down from writing here at WV.

I am honoured to have been a part of this wonderful resource and to have felt the love of so many who have connected with me through this medium. 

It is hard to let go - this platform has been one of the most important ways I have walked myself through this grief.  I have shared my ups and downs with you and you, in turn, have let me know I am not alone.

I remember how I felt when I first started writing - I had been pouring my pain into my own blog when Michele asked me to write here.  WV was to be a different way of writing as I was no longer writing Letters to my Husband, but I was writing about myself, my life, my now.

Ultimately, that change in writing style has seen me more closely examine my own feelings and name them for what they were: desolation, depression, desperation, despair.

But in recognising how I felt each week, I have been able to track those feelings over time.

There are times when I still feel the dark, mawing pit seething in front of me, trying to draw me down into its cavernous bowels ..... but now, more often than not, I am noticing other feelings that outweigh them.

Last week I wrote about the happiness that has come to be part of my life.
I have raised my eyes from my feet and have seen that my life is not over: that I have to live because I didn't die.

I have felt the love of my husband continue after his death and this love has given me the confidence to make a better life for my children and I.  ....and that's what I have been doing.

..... and ever so slowly, this new life is taking shape.

It's not the shape I wanted my life to be, but it is new and different and a tiny bit magnificent.

So it is time for me to say So Long- and thanks for all the fish (because you all should know by now what a massive geek I am and I would just have to use a HHGTTG quote somewhere in here).


....and so it falls on me to introduce my replacement here on WV. 

Please welcome Stephanie to the fold and shower her with the kindness and understanding that you have given me.....

Stephanie was widowed in February of 2013 after her husband of nearly 14 years, Mike, had a heart attack in his sleep at age 59. Only 44 at the time, she has spent the past year obsessively writing about her husband, her grief, and the difficult task of recreating her future. Stephanie is originally from the Washington, DC area but moved to Hollywood after college to work as a special FX artist. She met her husband, who was a stuntman, there in 1999. They moved to Hawaii in 2001, where for four years, they ran a martial arts/yoga school. They closed the school when Mike got the job as stunt coordinator for the TV show "Lost". Stephanie worked as the personal assistant to a physicist for several years, and then - now, ever so gratefully - spent a couple of years in quiet retirement with Mike before he died. She feels it is the exact right time for her to start connecting with other widows, and sharing stories of grief and personal transformation. Her first post will be on May 1, which was the day she and Mike first got engaged in 1999.