Wiping Away the Fears

For two years and nine months now... I have had one of those weird widow "things" that I have done. Or really that I haven't done. For all of these days, weeks, months, and years... I have not cleaned the bathroom mirror. Not once. The reason for this is simple, and anyone widowed will likely understand. When I shower every morning, I get out and look up at the fogged glass of that mirror... and across it are the faint streaks of a hand that once wiped it clean. A hand much bigger than mine.

For two years and nine months, I have been comforted by this... every time the mirror fogs up, there he appears again. For that moment, I can still believe that my fiancé is somehow right around the corner. I can believe that he is nearby even though I can't see him - just like his handprint on the mirror has been there all along, even when I can't see it. It has been a daily reminder to believe his love and his spirit still exist despite his body not being here anymore.

For two years and nine months, I felt right about leaving that mirror dirty. Covered in dust and little bits of toothpaste and soap down near the faucet. But then something shifted. A few weeks ago, when getting out of the shower and looking at it - the thought entered my mind for the very first time to CLEAN it. It came as naturally as could be. Just there, so nonchalantly. I didn't analyze it or force it to be there. Almost as if he was whispering to me, that it was time.

I stood and looked for long time, trying to decide if I would do it. Ultimately, on that day, I decided "not quite yet" and left it. For a few more weeks, each time I looked at it, I would think about it... "Not today". It was a gentle thought, and one I was able to hold without being upset. And then this past week, finally, after sitting with this idea long enough... I looked up and did the same thing I've done for the past month. As soon as I asked myself if I should do it, a sticker that said "broken hearts club" that I had taped to the mirror fell off. It's never fallen off before, and has been there for months. I decided, well, that was it then. He's telling me "just clean the damn mirror already!" And with that, I grabbed a clean rag and took a deep, thoughtful breath, and made a bold swipe across the mirror.

As I cleaned the fog and those final remnants of his touch off the mirror... I didn't see the erasing of him, but instead, I saw me. Instead of feeling like I was losing a piece of him, I felt like I was clearing away the things I had been clinging to and was able to see myself more clearly than I have in years. Without the dust. Without the dirt and grime. I marveled at the metaphor in front of me. How tightly I've been clinging to the tangible things that remind me of him these years. And how suddenly I am standing in this place... ready to begin to see myself more clearly. And ready to allow him to live in my heart.

It felt like a huge shift to feel unattached to that mirror finally - a release - because it means that I am beginning to trust that he is in me and with me always and I can never lose him again. He is no longer in that handprint on the mirror. He is everywhere, all the time. And as I'm beginning to trust more fully in that, the mirror became just a dirty mirror - without any power over me.

How bright everything looked once it was clean. How much brighter my own eyes looked as I watched my reflection looking back at me. I smiled, because now I have a clearer, brighter view of myself and I also have him - just as present as he has ever been. He didn't disappear like I feared. And with every one of these sorts of milestones of loosening my grip, I discover yet again that I can no more lose him from my life than the sky can lose its stars. It is just not possible, and not something I ever have to fear.

“It Isn't Fair”

I recently overheard a widowed woman sharing about her experience and of being still in a very painful place with it all after 4 long years. Granted in widowhood, that isn't an extremely unusual circumstance. But I do think sometimes we err on the side of being so careful with those grieving that we do not say some more blunt perspectives that could also be helpful to individuals. I don't know that they would be, but I'm willing put it out there and find out I guess. I could be entirely wrong, you all may let me know.

So this woman was expressing that she is still in so much deep pain, and wishing she wasn't. She obviously felt as if she was “behind” in some way with her grieving. And then she went on to say that one phrase that really bugs me... “It isn't fair!”

Well no, DUH, it's not fair. It isn't fair that you lost someone you love earlier than your wanted to. It isn't fair that I did either. None of this is FAIR. I'm not even sure why this feels so harsh to say – we've been telling five year olds this for decades. But somehow it doesn't seem to sink in. And it's entirely true... life isn't about fairness. It never has been. It never will be. I didn't make the rule… and I don't like it anymore than the next person. But there it is. It's been this way since the dawn of time. I don't know when we all started thinking it was supposed to be fair - probably always. But why? Who ever said that to have a happy life meant a life without pain? That a peaceful or fulfilling life was a life without unfairness? That the horrible stuff will always just happen to someone else? It doesn't work like that.

I learned this lesson pretty early in life. When my mom died, I was nine years old. My dad was a handicapped alcoholic widower that had no clue what to do with a 9 year old girl. That certainly wasn't fair to anyone in the situation, me or him. He worked very hard to provide a roof over my head, food for me to eat, clothes, and kept me in a good private school. He started going to AA meetings and even stopped drinking for a good while, too. But he was also an emotional mess. And he bottled up everything. And he sat around his entire life saying to himself “it's not fair”. I watched this statement eat away at him over all the years of my life, until he died from complications of heart and lung disease when I was 26. He never remarried. He never dated. He never really even made new friends hardly. I watched the mental and emotional anguish that comes from sitting inside of those three words "it's not fair" for too long. From being the victim of your circumstance for too long. Perhaps that is why I feel so strongly about this phrase and about owning it instead of letting it own ME. Naturally, I don't want to end up like him. 

This, being widowed, is NOT fair. Absolutely it is not. I would not wish this experience on my worst enemy. And while there is a certain amount of time – which can only be decided by us – that we do need to sit and gravel in that unfairness... there also comes a time to own that statement. There comes a time when we must grab hold of it and not let it take us down. A time when we must stand up and say that phrase in a different sort of way. “Life owes me nothing” is how I changed it up for me. It's harsh, and not flowery, but it's absolutely what I need to remind me that happiness isn't just going to show up on my doorstep after a certain amount of time. I am going to have to WORK.

This phrase reminds me that it's up to me to decide everything that happens from here on. It's up to me to make something out of the aftermath of his death, and find a way for his memory and his life to live on. It's up to me to create meaning from all this pain. To drag myself through the mud screaming if that is what it takes to work through it. And to reach out my hand to someone else and help pull them through the mud when they get stuck there... because I think that is where the most meaning can be made – in seeing just how much we can give and receive from each other. It is also where I am finding balance to the unfairness.

No, my story is not fair. But losing this one incredible man has brought into my life a string of other hearts which I have influenced and who have influenced me in ways I never imagined. It takes work to open up to that. Really fucking hard work. I want to close off and shut down and let his death ruin my life sometimes. It takes work every day still - even two and a half years later. Some days I am still crawling through the mud. But I'm beginning to see now that this idea that a happy life is one without pain is totally false. I'm beginning to see just how beautiful this unfair life can be if I work for it and keep my heart open. I'm beginning to see that maybe there are reasons that so much pain has happened to me… because I am someone who can do something with it. Change it into something else. Help another because of my experience. And that is not just me, but also you. We all have that capacity. 

Life does not owe me happiness. That means that I have choices every single day to move towards something or sit in the unfairness. Some days, I say no, and I sit in the unfairness of it all. Hell, I did that most of the morning today. Sometimes I need to. But eventually, I remember that phrase "life owes me nothing". And soon enough I get up and go looking for my happiness, or my peace, or some meaning and purpose. For something that is positive. It is up to me to work for it, to find it, to make it when I can't find it, and to give it to someone else who needs it once I've got it. I suppose that is why I am writing this to begin with, after all. It was a bad morning, and I decided to make something out of it. Hopefully it finds its way to someone who needs it. 

Milestones & Grief Creep

"Sanctuary" © Sarah Treanor

This past week one of the most amazing things happened to me that has happened in my "after" life. I was selected as a finalist for a magazine cover of an art magazine - for one of my photographs that tells part of my grief journey - and ended up winning the final vote. It is the first time my art will be published on a magazine cover. This is huge for my fledgling career as an artist. And more-so it is huge because more people going through loss will see my grief series and hopefully find something of their own story there.

I couldn't believe how many people voted and shared. Thousands of fans and friends and family all rallied behind me to make this happen. My gym shared it on their business page. My mother-in-law's employees all voted and shared it. People I don't even know. Old college classmates. Old coworkers. So many left comments about the grief journey they are on, and how one particular image or another of mine spoke directly to them. People bought prints - one, a counselor, who will be putting up the photo in her grief counseling room. It has been unreal.

Suddenly I have found myself looking back in a different way than I have before. Looking back and realizing that I've gotten somewhere I do want to be. Before my fiancé died, none of this was here. I was working in a cubicle, feeling trapped and unhappy and scared because I had no clue how to ever really go for my dream of being an artist. Leaving a full time job was the MOST terrifying thing I could possibly imagine. Before he died, this idea of being an artist was all just wishful thinking… a far away notion that he and I would often talk about over afternoon lunches and morning coffee.

Little did I know that his death was going to take me on a journey I could have never imagined for myself. Not an EASY journey… but somehow, a far more meaningful one. His death was the catalyst in my leaving that career behind. It was the thing that shook me awake and made me see that if he could die for his dreams, then I'd better get started living for mine.

It's been a horrible and agonizing and fear-filled journey that I wouldn't wish on anyone (you all know this!), and it STILL is every step of the way. Somehow though, during these two and a half years I have found some sort of really meaningful beginning. One that is far more meaningful to me than the life I was living before he died.

It isn't the one I wanted - not like THIS. I never wanted to make art about the death of the most important person in my world. Or death in general. But when you lose your mother at age 9, your father at age 26 and then your fiancé at age 29… it begins to feel like someone is trying to tell you something. I finally decided to listen and allow death into my art… nothing has felt more healing.

I'm learning that by having his death and him as the center of what I'm putting myself into, it is giving it a solid foundation. On the days when I feel scared shitless and still have NO CLUE how I will ever make any REAL money doing this (living off my savings, betting it all on this crazy dream right now). On days when I feel lost and like I'm floating… knowing that he is at the center of this work is what helps me to be able to keep faith going. It helps me to know with all my heart that this work is valuable and meaningful, because all of my love for him rests within these images. And I know without a doubt that will mean something to other people. Clearly, it is.

The days after the big win have been of course an emotional roller coaster - just like any major event in our lives without our person. I call it grief creep… we all know it well. The aftermath of anything exciting - the quiet moments when the pain slips back in to steal the spotlight. As the week has progressed, I think I've just gotten sadder. Sad that he is not here to celebrate with me. Heartbroken that no one actually thought to take me out for a celebratory dinner or drink for this monumental moment in my life. No one. Which leaves me with the painful reminder that the person who was sharing a life WITH me is not here… and that I no longer have someone to be excited for me in the way that only your partner can be. And I miss that so much. And I miss him.

And suddenly, the whole milestone event of the magazine cover begins to pale in comparison to the feelings of sadness and grief. Don't you hate that? When the grief just seems to swallow up the good stuff - no matter how hard you try to not let it? I know I do. I've been fighting it all week - trying so hard to hold on to the good, and trying not to let in the sadness. I know… I have to let the sadness in. It needs to be felt as much as the joy. I will let it in, but dammit, I don't want to.

PS. A big thank you to anyone here who may have happened to vote for my image. You made a huge difference in my world this week.

To view my grief series "Still, Life" you can visit my blog here.

The Next Chapter

Starting 2015 sick in bed with a cold is not exactly what I had planned!

Well so far, 2015 is not going as planned, as I came down with a yucky head cold on New Years Day and have spent the past few days in bed, wishing Dan were here to fuss over me.

I had such grand plans of spending the last few days of my Summer holiday enjoying time with my family and friends, hitting the gym to start shaking the couple of kilos that crept on over the month of December (damn socialising making me fat!) and working on a few projects around in the house.  Instead I've been laying around, drinking tea, next to an ever-growing pile of snotty tissues, watching the Real Housewives of New York City.

It's been so hard not to slip into a depression knowing I've had to put my plans on hold and wait this cold out, but I keep trying to remind myself that there will always be roadblocks when we least expect or want them and this is a temporary set back.   2015 will still be there in a few days when I'm back fighting fit.

Just because I didn't get to start the new year with all guns blazing, I'm still hopeful that it will be a good year and I have some pretty big goals waiting for me.  In a few weeks time it will have been 18 months since Dan passed away unexpectedly.  As I look back I can't help but marvel at how far I've come.

This time last year I was still in shock and taking each day, one at a time.  My goal for 2013, after his death, was just to survive.  Then, as I made my way in to 2014, my mantra was 'healing'.  I dedicated the year to keeping life simple and working on my my personal growth - improving my physical and mental health, reducing stress, finding my 'hope' and being gentle with myself while learning my new limits and boundaries.  It's certainly not what I had planned, as we had hoped to start a family in 2014, but I had to let go of that and accept my new life.

Some big achievements in this past year of healing included attending a national conference here in Australia on suicide post-vention; organising a get together with a group of widows I met online who travelled from all around the country to meet up in person; my first visit to USA for Camp Widow West in July (which was a real turning point); and surviving some significant firsts - including what would have been his 35th birthday, our first wedding anniversary and his first death anniversary.

I weeded out a friend or two who I realised weren't supportive or positive influences in my life and spent a lot more time with the people who were.  I accepted that I don't have to worry so much about pleasing others and started learning to be more assertive without the associated feelings of guilt and selfishness. And finally, I put more time and effort in to self care, incorporating more activities like meditation, yoga, massage and a bit of old fashioned pampering into my life.

As 2014 drew to a close I felt really proud of where I was.  I am a better person, calmer and more positive.  The healing will be an ongoing process and one that I continue to work on for the rest of my life, but I felt ready to shift my focus to a new goal.

Happiness.

This is what my heart now craves.  I am generally happy most of the time, I find joy in the small things and don't often dwell on what I'm missing out on.  But I feel ready to take some bigger steps forward in 2015.

One of these steps will hopefully be the launch of a not-for-profit organisation here in Australia to support widowed people through the grieving process after the death of a spouse (and Michele from Soaring Spirits has kindly been mentoring me with this project).  Along with some wonderful widowed friends I have formed a steering committee to work towards this goal, under the guidance of an executive coach.

It's a huge (and often overwhelming) task but we are determined to bring together some resources to help those following in our footsteps.  We are close to hitting some major milestones and I'm very excited that my vision looks like it might just come to life.

Another 'happiness' goal I have for 2015 is to try dating again.  For a long time I felt ill at the thought of even holding another man's hand but over the past couple of months I've started feeling differently.  I think I'm beginning to understand how it might be possible to open my heart again while not losing any of the love I have for Dan, but rather, carrying him forward with me.

I'm yet to dip my toe in that pool and know it will be challenging but I'm feeling more ready than I have in the past.  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as making a decision and then waiting as the eligible men form an orderly queue. I have no idea how to go about meeting someone special (let alone explaining to them that I come with some pretty complicated and heavy baggage) but for now, just being open to it feels enough.  I'm hopeful that if I continue to work on taking steps forward and staying positive, Dan might just put someone in my path.

But anyway, we'll have to wait and see.  If Dan's death has taught me anything, it's that we have no idea what lies around the corner - good or bad.  All the planning and preparation and dreaming means nothing if fate has plans that are out of our control.  I try not to focus on that niggling, worrying thought that 2015 might hold some challenge or sad news that I don't yet feel ready for, because I can't stop or control that either.  I just have to be.  And trust that whatever this year brings, I'll be ok.

So, come at me 2015.  I'm ready for a new chapter... just as soon as my nose stops running and the sandpaper in my throat buggers of!

Death: The Barrier

I thought this week I would share one of the images from my self portrait series and the story behind it. While I was out shooting on the beach for last week’s photograph – wandering the grassy, windswept dunes – I came across a peculiar sight. Every plant on the beach was bright green and vibrant with life that day. Rich olive green sea grasses and succulent fat-leaved emerald vines with ripe yellow flowers. There must have been an unseasonable amount of rain recently because everything was really blushing. You could feel it – like all of nature had just taken in a deep breath.

But then, right in the middle of it all, I noticed this one particular type of plant. They were large – towering over me by at least a few feet. And every single one of them, as far as my eyes could see, over each rolling dune down the beach, was dead. All of them. There was such an eerie metaphoric nature to it… these clusters of death pitted right down in the midst of so much life. It seemed almost deliberate. Certainly hard to miss when you are closely observing a landscape as I often am.

With mosquitos biting boldly at my ankles and arms, (I will remember to add insect repellant to my camera bag from now on!) I grabbed my gear and climbed into a thicket of these otherworldly dead plants to explore. The leaves were a silvery blue-green hue – like faded sage. I had no plan. No idea what I even wanted to capture. I just began shooting, trying different ways of interacting with this mesmerizing space.

It is images like this one that make me realize how important it is sometimes to let go of our plan and follow wherever our feelings and intuition guide us. To not be so alarmed if we do not have a plan, and to trust that one will unfold for us.

Out of all the variations I shot for this image, this is the one that spoke to me instantly. It is because of the personal meaning which began to come out of it for me as I sat with it in the days after shooting. Mostly, it is in the eyes. There is a very specific kind of darkness there – a hollow vacancy which takes me right back to the year of my fiance’s death.

It was June when he died. 2012. I recall by the time autumn arrived, there was so little energy left in me. After endless minutes and hours and days and weeks and months of fighting and cryin – of screaming desperate animal sounds into the air – there came a time when there was nothing left in me but to just sit and stare blankly. And so I did, many days, just sit outside on the back porch at the ranch and stare off into space. Broken. Hollow-eyed. Feeling the cavernous wind against my skin – which only seemed to endlessly whisper of how far away spring was. Or that spring, for “us”, was never coming back again.

I don’t know if others saw this expression externally in those early days or not, but I do know that this is what it felt like on the inside. Every moment of every day for a long time. Vacant. Lost. Staring into nothing. Searching. Without words.

And then death – the quiet, dangerous barrier that divided me from everything. From him. From my future. From my past. From myself. From everyone else. On the other side of his death, I couldn’t see any other part of me or life that once existed. I could not see the woman who loved to rock climb and kayak, or the woman who dreamed of being an artist someday. Or the woman who loved animals and old western movies. I couldn’t see anything but the woman who just lost everything.

When people looked at me from the other side of that barrier – it felt like all they could see about me was death too. As if I was nothing more than the remains of his death and a reminder to them of things they didn’t want to know intimately. With the exception of a few individuals, it felt like no one could see me.

Two and a half years later, the spring is beginning to come for me. Life is starting to be vibrant again. I am able to see the other parts of myself again, as are others, it feels. I am starting to actually love life again – which astounds me to even say. There is still a part of me standing in the thicket of his death though. I think there will always be. And I think there should always be a part of me that stands there. To me, it is the place that always serves to remind me of how glorious the rest of the landscape is that surrounds me in this “after” life. Because when I stop and look around, it really is still so glorious. 

Third Thanksgiving Lessons

Thanksgiving was easier this year. I think. It was certainly less terrifying than the first year. I still remember that first year, when we changed the tradition from being at my in-laws' house to Drew's aunt & uncle's house near Houston. His aunt did assigned seats… and I was sat next to the ONLY empty chair in the whole room. Which also happened to be at what I affectionately call the Widow table. Myself, his grandmother (widowed), his aunt (also widowed). Now I know it was accidental, but I had to laugh at the complete irony of the whole situation. Sometimes you have to laugh or you'll cry, am I right? I was paralyzed by the fear that I would cry during the prayer (which I did anyway, so fearing it was futile). It ended up being a fun table to be at in the end. We had plenty of dark laughter to go around, after all. Still, I remember wanting nothing more than to be alone and just erupt in tears for hours on end. The feeling was literally a pain in my heart. You all know that pain.

Oh the fear of that first Thanksgiving. Every single event that first year - fear held me captive. I was afraid to leave the house at all in the first few weeks. Afraid to go to movies. Afraid to eat out. Afraid to get a hair cut because of small talk. Afraid of work. Afraid to go to the doctor to get anxiety meds because I knew I'd have to say why. Afraid to be introduced to people's friends. Afraid to go places he and I went together. Afraid everywhere I went because I didn't know when the grief would overtake me or how or why. I was SO fragile. So deeply deeply fragile. I felt like a child again. Perhaps I was so broken that - in a way - I was a child again.

Last year was better. We did the same routine at his aunt & uncle's house, but at least this time the seating arrangement was different and I didn't get the empty chair next to me. I remember waking up on Thanksgiving morning and actually feeling excited about turkey and pie… and to my surprise, the paralyzing fear was not there. There was sadness, deep deep sadness still, but not the sort that overtook me entirely. More the sort that was able to sit alongside my joy and wait its turn a bit. So it was better.

This year, my relationship with the sadness was even more changed. A part of me seems to understand that he won't be there now, and know this more as a matter of fact now. It has started to become something my body and soul are accepting as the norm I feel. Like "okay, we've done this before, we know what we're dealing with" Which is strange, but… in a way nice. Nice to not feel like I am fighting it. Nice to just know this as truth and perhaps begin to relax into that a bit.

I think it helped that we did something different this year too. His family and I went in to San Antonio and had our celebration at a nice hotel there in town. His little brother just joined the Air Force, and was only allowed the day off base - hence the plan to do the hotel buffet thing. It ended up being this really beautiful day. We have barely had any contact with his brother while he's in basic training. In a way, this limited contact has reminded us again just how precious our time together is, each day we get to have it.

We had no expectations for the day other than to see his brother. We could have enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner at McDonald's for all we cared, so long as we got to all be together. That is something that Drew's death changed for all of us, I think. When we are all together now - there is a different kind of gratitude flowing through the room. A deeper gladness for each other. It is how Drew's death has changed all of my relationships to those I am close to. It is a gift he has left us - a deeper perspective about what's important.

In a really unexpected way… the sadness was minimal. Instead of it riding alongside my joy, or just underneath it waiting to erupt, it actually seemed to take a back seat. That doesn't meant Drew took a back seat though. There was not a single moment all day that I wasn't thinking of him and loving him. But somehow… instead of the sadness, there was love. The miracle of the love he gave me. The love of the family he brought into my life. The joy of the new opportunities and new people that his death has brought into my life. The gratitude of his life and death giving me the chance to live my dreams today. The joy of knowing this one man changed the entire course of my life forever - and that he still is, even in death.

The more I heal and the more I step into myself and live my life fully - it seems the closer he and I get. I hope that is something everyone can believe and hope for - that when we begin to heal and help each other heal, our relationship to them only becomes stronger. That when we begin to live more boldly - they come with us along the journey.

I was told this a long time ago and I never could believe or understand it. It sounded impossible to ever not feel the pain or sadness at an excruciating level. But now… I'm beginning to understand. It has happened really slowly over these three years. So slowly that I couldn't even notice it was happening until just this week.

Pain is not the only way to experience our loved ones who have crossed over. And as we heal, and the pain begins to subside naturally on its own timeline, it will leave room for the love. I was scared it wouldn't for a long time. This whole year it seems has been a lesson in letting go of the fear that not feeling the pain or sadness as strongly will mean not feeling him anymore. Not true. I am learning.

As we heal there will only be more room for the love to grow. And grow it will. They are with us forever. Sending all of you love on this Thanksgiving Week… whether you are in the hell of it all or somewhere further along that feels less raw - my love to you all.

Healing Forward

I was talking to a widowed friend the other night about the whole idea of sharing this part of our life and how it changes over time. I remember well the first year after my fiance died. The first thing out of my mouth was this information. I told everyone and anyone. Friends, family, coworkers, customers, the mail man, police officers, the tech support guy, random strangers... No one was safe. I spewed my raw pain out all over the world like a continually erupting volcano. 

My friend did the same. We talked about how at first, it is the only thing we wanted to talk about. It is the only thing that mattered. And for a while, it really did swallow up our identity. And we talked about how we felt like we lost the whole rest of our identity for a time to the label "widow". Which left us both feeling conflicted - simultaneously wanting to be completely defined by our love for this person, and resentful that people now only saw us as a widow.

Then we raised the question: when did that shift? When did we go from the hurling our widowhood at every innocent bystander to becoming extremely protective of this information and very choosy about who we share it with? 

It has happened somewhere in this third year for me. I've begun to re-emerge into life again. And as I have, slowly my desire to be defined as a widow has become less and less. After two years of talking about nothing but death and about him in exhaustion, I am finding that its okay not to talk about it all the time anymore. I'm finding myself wanting to talk about other things that are a part of me; art and writing, new music and travel, fun recipes and healthy living. 

Instead of my widowhood being the first thing I tell people now, it is usually that I am an artist. Sometimes I wait months before sharing with someone new about being widowed. My friend - who's a few years ahead of me on this road - does the same thing. And we wondered, what causes that transition from sharing it with everyone to keeping it more private? 

Our initial answer was that we have just grown tired of the myriad of awkward reaponses we get from people. And tired of being pegged as The Widow. And tired of the unwanted advice. Eventually, it becomes easier to just avoid all that as long as possible. But there were other things we realized too as we discussed it. More positive things. 

We talked about how we were so raw at first that we absolutely needed to talk to anyone and everyone about it. Acute pain needs serious acute talking to begin to heal. Over time, all that sharing and other things we've done for ourselves have helped us to heal to a point where we no longer need to talk about it all the time. So the fact that we can comfortably not talk about it now is a sign that we are healing.

Our desire to be defined by other parts of ourselves has begun to return too. This horrible, unspeakable thing happened to us, but it is NOT who we are. So somewhere in this year 3-5 area, we each found a desire to reclaim and rediscover who we are now. 

We also talked about how difficult that transition is. How we each felt scared that we were leaving our partner behind if we began to talk about them less or reenter into life again. How we worried that it would make us lose them all over again. This is what I have struggled with largely most of this year - this push-pull between wanting desperately to fill my life with other things again and feeling guilty about it and scared I'd feel farther from him.

What we both found though, is that it didn't make us feel farther from them at all. In fact it has felt more the opposite for me. This year, I've transitioned into spending more of my time thinking about the present and the future. I've started to accept that I must build a new life of my own and begun to work towards building this life into something happy and meaningful. To my surprise, he has come with me every step of the way.

 It turns out that beginning to live again doesn't mean I have to move on without him. To my relief, it actually seems to be quite impossible to leave him behind. He is so deeply interwoven into the fabric of this new woman I am that I'm finding that nothing can separate us now. He is in everything now - even the new beautiful things and people that weren't part of our life. Especially those in fact, because his death is what has lead me to them... And so it feels like he is always leading me to happiness. It's been a beautiful discovery which has come out of this third year of widowhood. He will always be. 

Trying to Keep an Open Heart

I just want to be alone so much lately. I've always been a bit introverted, but I literally haven't wanted to be around anyone at all lately - and that's not like me. For me, it can be so easy to just close off from the world. I know it's one of those things I have to be careful about keeping in check. Particularly as an artist - it is extremely tempting to only express my emotions through the things I create. While this is very healing way to express my pain - it can also turn on me and become a way of keeping the world at a distance if I'm not careful. I can begin create an image of myself through my art - let people see my pain the way I want them to see it. Sometimes, it's tempting to only let people see my pain that way.

Which is why I'm grateful for being able to write here - because it's one of the places I feel like I can let my hair down. Today, while sitting and reading over some of your comments from my last post - I just burst into tears. All my emotion came out just be reading heartfelt words from others, words that heaved themselves over my carefully constructed walls. I was surprised I was crying. I was surprised at how quickly I went from seeming just slightly melancholy to really really painfully sad. I guess sometimes we need someone else to pull that out of us… to notice it in us so that we can notice it in ourselves. It reminded me that I need remember to let people in more… to let them help me cry, or sit with my while I cry. Not just let them see what I create out of my pain - but let them see my pain, just the way it is. Gosh, why is it so hard to do that? Why is it so easy to just want to hide it away - especially when we know that it's what connects to each other the most?

In a strange way - it's actually something I miss about the first year. I was SO raw and so broken open that I did not close off from people. I couldn't. It didn't matter if we'd known each other five minutes… there I was, spewing my emotions out on any unfortunate soul who crossed my path! And to my surprise, in return, most of the time they gave so much love and support. They didn't gawk or walk away. And they still do give so much, but it seems over time I have slowly retreated and allowed people less of a chance to help me. I've become comfortable again at not letting people see me cry. It's a constant dance to try and remain open-hearted… a dance that others - including everyone here - helps to make a lot easier. I honestly don't know what I'd do without my widowed community. This amazing army of people whom I never - not once - feel ridiculous with. I hate that we all get it - but I'm so very glad we have each other. You help me keep my heart open and you help me to remember that sometimes even a really strong gal just needs to cry. And sometimes she needs to cry a whole lot maybe - and maybe even for seemingly no particular reason other than she's just sad. Thank you for all you do for me.

When Sick was Pretty

This past week, I've been under the weather with a mysterious illness. On Tuesday, my lymph nodes started to swell up. By Wednesday they were the size of golf balls and very tender. And then some glands in my cheeks started to do the same. Needless to say, by Wednesday night I looked like I had gained twenty pounds on my face. I actually had no other symptoms of any kind save being a tad achy and tired - so when I went to the doctor on Friday, even he was stumped. Whatever it is, it seems to be subsiding with the antibiotics he gave me though, but the whole week of dealing with this has been awful.

I've been sick since Drew died a few times - colds, flus, stuff like that. But the last time I remember my anything that changed my physical appearance was when I got my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago. And he was by my side the whole time… laughing at my chipmunk cheeks and making me laugh which made me look even dumber and made us both laugh even harder. Funny as it was, I knew I looked awful, yet here I was looking completely beautiful through this man's eyes.

Even with gauze shoved into my face and swelled up cheeks for miles, there was this man. This man who drove me there and waited with me at the dentist. Who calmed me and held my hand because I was so scared to have a tooth pulled that I was getting anxiety. This man who picked up my medicine for me at the pharmacy and got my soup. Who watched with loving humor as the Codeine took affect and made my already very talkative self about 1000 times more talkative…. until I totally crashed 3 hours later. For all of that, and for all the many other ordinary, vulnerable moments, he was there…. Looking at me with those beautiful blue-hazel eyes that said everything about being sick was pretty. Even the stuff that wasn't. Because those were some of the most tender and most beautiful moments of showing our love for one another. I really miss that.

This week, I did not feel beautiful. I felt hideous, and fat, and so completely self conscious that - despite having no other symptoms and feeling pretty fine - I did not leave the house for four days. Not even to have dinner with his/our family - whom I still live with. I did not want a soul on the planet to see my looking this way. I only wanted one soul to see me - the one who I knew really saw me… him. It made me realize just how fortunate I was to have had the kind of man who would take such wonderful care of me. A man who was so in love with me that I could see my own beauty through his eyes - and that even after he died, his love continues to make me feel like the most beautiful girl most days.

Just… not on the days when your head swells up three times its normal size. On those days, it doesn't matter how strong and unbreakable your love is, you want your person THERE. Really there. I wanted so badly for him to look at me from behind those glasses with hint of a smile that tells me everything I need to know. Or to feel his arms wrapped around me, embracing me and my puffiness. Or to have him make me laugh at my own ridiculous of thinking I look hideous at all. Those are the things I really miss. The ones I would give anything to have back.

~~~

Instead, though, there was a different kind of love there for me. His mom's love. It was she who called me every day around lunch to see how I was feeling and what the doctor said. She who brought me home Gatorade and soup - and not just soup, but like ten different flavors… a buffet of soups. It didn't make me feel beautiful, not in the way his love can… but still, I have felt so deeply loved and cared for.

For a gal who lost her mother as a child, it is impossible for me to take for granted these moments. I was eight years old the last time my own mother cared for me while I was sick. I'd given up on ever feeling any sort of deep motherly nurturing long ago. Now, twenty four years later, I am feeling that love through his mom and our relationship that has been fostered and deepened in the wake of his death. In a way, it is also feeling her son's love for me through her - and her love for her son, too. It's a gift beyond gifts and one I never imagined I would hold. She is, as many have called her, my angel.

So there was still much love this week. A different kind. Nothing will ever be the same as how he made me feel when I was sick, but I don't guess there's any need to compare. I suppose sometimes we just have to allow our partners to send their love to us through those who are still here to give it.

Wishing you good health as the cold & flu season comes.
And if you do get sick, don't forget to let the love and caring of others help make the sick days more beautiful.

The Healing Cycle

"On the Backs of the Wild" ©Sarah Treanor 2012

This past week something really big happened for me. It was one of those things that originally came out of nowhere, yet will be something I will remember for the rest of my life. It all began almost a year ago, with an email. The woman writing to me was a poet, and she came across my photography online and wanted to use one of my images for the cover of her first poetry book. I was astounded. Somehow… in ALL OF THE INTERNET… this stranger from Utah found MY photos and fell in love with one of them for her cover. Was I dreaming?

And it wasn't just any photo, it was one of my favorite photos that I took in the year that took him. A simple, serene image of the soft slope of a horse's back just after a heavy rain… the sky still melancholy with a blanket of clouds. I can still remember the day. It was fall. I had moved down to central Texas from Dallas to live with his family on their ranch. It had poured all morning and the horses were covered in rain and dirt from running wildly through the pastures. Horses always know how to play in the rain, they never grow up in that respect - a lesson we could learn from.

It was just months after he died and the only thing in my world that made me still feel alive was to get behind my camera. There I could search out mysterious other worlds. Worlds where my reality didn't feel so heavy. Sometimes worlds where it didn't exist at all. Looking back, I am astounded at the photos that came out of me during this time. They were drastically different from anything I had shot before. Operating entirely by my broken heart - suddenly all of my photos were like portraits of my grief. This one in particular felt so very close to that sacred space inside me where my deepest grief lay. The quiet solitude of this image mirrors the feeling of my own solitude so precisely. I'm only now beginning to grasp that, two years later.

So by now you're wanting to know where this story goes. I've wandered enough. I first mentioned to you that something big happened this past week… and it was this: After almost a full year of patiently hoping that my photo would be the final one the author would choose. After sometimes months of not hearing anything and wondering. And then months more after my photo was chosen for the publishers and designers to complete everything and get it into print… after all of that… this past week, a package arrived in the mail. From Utah. I zipped open the brown packing and there it was. The image that says everything that was inside my soul after he died... singing gracefully and proudly from the cover of a book. And not just a book, but a book of poetry - another deep love of mine (And the poems inside are breathtaking, by the way. I've read a dozen or so this week and many have moved me to tears with their beauty).

I'm not certain I can put into words what this feels like for me. It isn't closure, I don't really believe in that concept. I think it is something like purpose or meaning or maybe understanding. For the author wrote to me this: "I really can't express this properly -- I had no idea how beautiful this book could be until it was realized with your photograph on the cover. I'm so proud of this book & the image reflects the exact kind of beauty & solitude & mourning & serendipitous joy that I hope it contains in its pages. Thank you, thank you, thank you." And there it is… yes, an understanding perhaps that I never had before. Something that I created when I was in the very darkest and most painful place in my life has somehow gone on to live its own new life. And it has its own entirely different purpose now too - to uplift the breathtaking work or another artist. And forevermore, this poet and I will be inextricably linked by the creations that we have both made out of our own lives and our own pains. It is an eerie and darkly gorgeous thing I could have never imagined would happen in my life.

I didn't expect to have some profound lesson come out of this venture. But there it is… this understanding that maybe that is what we're supposed to do with all of this pain in life. We're supposed to express it. And give it away so that it can become something that uplifts or supports the life of another. In this way, it can be transformed into something - transformed actually, back into love - which is what our pain was in the first place. That is one powerful healing cycle.

Maybe it's something we create - like this photo or a song or a painting - or maybe its as simple taking the time to talk about our pain openly, so that it can help another feel less alone. When we express it openly we are giving our pain a chance to grow wings and soar - and to give a gift to someone else's journey along the way.

It is precisely the kind of impact I have hoped for his life and his death to have since that dreadful day one. And slowly, as I begin to heal a little more, and as I keep expressing my pain in any and every way that feels right, I am starting to feel like he and I are building a legacy together… one in which he is teaching me the lessons I could not have learned any other way. Lessons that are vital in helping me to be a part of others lives in ways I never would have been able to before. And that part of this dreadful journey… I would not trade for anything.

I don't say it enough - but thank you all for allowing me space in your Sunday to give my pain. And thank you for writing back to me with yours so that we can keep this healing cycle going together. ~ Much Love

Ready for [A Little] New

Overlooking Diamond Head crater on Oahu. 

I've had a roller coaster of a weekend. Yesterday was my fiancé and I's anniversary of when we began dating, and in just a few more days comes the two year mark of his death. I spent the past two weeks in Hawaii visiting a friend, which was incredible and a welcome distraction. Then, on Wednesday, I flew directly to Portland for a conference. Needless to say - not only is this an emotion filled month anyway, but I am absolutely depleted from being gone from home for almost three weeks. By the end of yesterday, my emotions were erupting. It's quite a miracle I haven't gone into a full-blown melt down (yet!).

The worst of it was, I'd had two full weeks of feeling pretty great. And coming down from that - as you ALL know - is the worst. But I'm trying to look for some positives in it all - because despite how tired and run-down I am right now, I had some important shifts while on this trip.

My girlfriends and I went on hikes around Oahu almost every single day… we hiked through rain-soaked forests, to the top of 800 foot waterfalls, open vistas, and ancient craters. We visited Pearl Harbor and floated a lantern for my fiancé at the annual festival. On the last day of my trip, I hopped into a WWII era biplane for an island tour and some aerobatics maneuvers - the most amazing experience of my life. Even though it sucks to be coming down from all of this… I want to focus on the important things I've learned. Aside from wishing that was my life every day of the year (and that my fiancé was there to enjoy it with me) I really realized just how little regular ole fun I have in my daily life.

I've been working so tirelessly for the past few months on my grief photography project that I realized I've really done very little besides create art around grief and write about grief and think about grief and talk about grief. Don't get me wrong, it does feel good to be working on that - to be healing and expressing and sharing and helping - but I'm seeing after this vacation that I really could use a little more plain, ordinary FUN in my life.

I realize as I type that, it's a big deal. The fact that I want for more fun at all, especially NEW fun. The fact that I am even ENJOYING new fun… the fun that he and I did not share together. For almost two years now, I have not felt able to really get out and make new friends or start new hobbies much. Since I moved away from where all our friends live, this has made things kind of lonely. I've mostly kept to the things that I already enjoyed while he was alive... because even if we didn't do them together, they connect me to that life still.

Another little step - just a few months ago I signed up for Crossfit at the local gym, and it has turned into one of my first small reaches into a new life it seems. Aside from giving me a boost of confidence and helping me feel stronger, it's place I am beginning to make friends. And finally, it doesn't feel wrong or off or uncomfortable. It actually feels…. okay. And so did having two weeks in Hawaii spending all my time hiking and exploring the new and just enjoying the present moment. It felt okay that he wasn't physically with me. I definitely feel a shift is happening after this trip.

It still feels like yesterday that the idea of trying anything too new or having to try and establish any new friendships felt completely impossible and really scary. But I guess when the time is right, it becomes a lot less scary. With a lot of work on healing, and some wonderful support from others… eventually we will start to be able to let the new in without being scared that it will replace what we had. It can't ever be replaced, and they will always be here, even in the new lives we forge ahead into. So here's to letting new fun in today… in whatever ways we can - big or small. Aloha!

I am not What Happened to Me

Showing my strength at Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii. 

A week ago, I had a really big moment. It was defined the by a very simple difference in word choice. It was not something anyone else would have noticed or defined as big - unless of course you yourself are widowed perhaps. While at the gym, one of the other girls in class asked if I was married and had kids. And I said - in this effortless, matter-of-fact way - "No, I'm widowed, so the kids thing is pretty much out of the picture for right now". And then I just continued about my workout. Just like that. No big emotional breakdown. No desire to run and hide. No real care for whether or not this other woman was pitying me. It just rolled out naturally. A fact. Plain and simple.

This was a big deal. Something felt really different about it. The more I thought about it, I began to realize what it was. I said "I'm widowed". It's the first time since he died that I have said it that way by default. Every other time I have said "I'm a widow". I AM a widow. It's a small difference in words, but it feels like a huge difference in perspective.

In that moment, I realized that a shift is happening. I'm starting to feel like this is something that happened to me, and not that it IS me. For the past two years, my world has been so completely consumed by his death and by my grief that it's been hard so see myself as anything other than a widow. I hate that. Because I was so many other things in my past life. A rock climber. A kayaker. A skydiver. A lover of hockey. A friend. A sister. A photographer. When he died, suddenly, I was just a widow. I stopped doing a lot of things I enjoyed - although not all. And even though I was still a friend and a sister, it's like I was wearing a pair of glasses in which the grief tinted everything and made any other parts of me very hard to see.

But lately, I've poured myself into my photography and writing in a way that I never have before. I've had a different kind of focus and a feeling of purpose about it. It's helped me reclaim that part of who I am. I've added new things too… things that the old me in my old life would have never been gutsy enough to try. In February, I signed up for Crossfit class - a very high-intensity, total body workout that's been a big trend the past few years. I have to explain this by saying that I've never been very physically fit in my life, and Crossfit is definitely something I never in a million years would have imagined I would sign up for. Not only has it been healing to try something I'd have never done before his death, but seeing my body get stronger over time has in turn helped my mind and soul to feel stronger, too. Each day I go to that class, I lift a little more weight, or run a little farther, and that progress in strengthening my body seems to be carrying over to my mind and spirit too.

For the first time since he died, I feel like I am more than just a widow. And don't get me wrong - I am actually damn proud now to call myself a widow. It means I am part of an incredible community of some of the strongest people I've ever known. But you all get it - it's still the club you wish you didn't belong to. And it's still important for us to find other parts of ourselves on this journey so that we can begin to see ourselves as more than just widowed. Rediscovering the other parts of ourselves - or perhaps discovering them for first time - is what helps us to be able to find something about our new life that we can feel proud of and even joyful about. It helps us to embrace the new life, which in turn helps us to better honor the person we will love forever and the life we shared with them.

Photo Note: This is photo taken of me by my best friend just a few days ago at Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. One more thing that I never imagined that I would ever do is visit this place. Upon seeing the Grand Canyon just a few months after Drew died, I decided to visit a canyon every year somehow. This is the third. Both a humbling and empowering place to look out on. 

Camp Widow

Since I lost my fiancé almost 2 years ago, I have been acutely aware of how uncomfortable my very presence makes people at times. I talk about it less and less on Facebook, and even with my closest friends and family. It turns out people really don't like being reminded of death. Who knew? I've started to feel like I am carrying around some bad omen on my back - like some I'm some messenger of death now that brings a black aura everywhere I go. It's definitely a shitty part of this journey - feeling like my very identity upsets people or makes them uncomfortable. Which is made to suck even more by the fact that I am one of those people too - I also don't want to be around my own pain and this new unwanted identity of "widow". It is a constant battle for me to try and make peace with this new part of who I am that reminds me of everything I do not have.

Not entirely sure of what to expect or how it will help me with this identity crisis, last Friday I hopped on a plan to go to Camp Widow for the first time. If its new to you, this is a conference for widowed people held three times a year - the only one of its kind. Upon arrival I am surrounded by a few hundred others just like me. I even meet a few close friends for the first time in person. These people are incredible. They are not famous, they are not peace prize winners or hollywood actors, they are just you and me - all of us regular people - deciding to show up even though life has completely broken us. There we all are… still trying to find hope and healing and something good in life. Despite it all… Still fucking trying!

I meet Tanya, who's fiancé died in the 9/11 attacks and whose story both drops me to my knees and simultaneously fills me with so much hope and strength that my soul overflows. I meet a woman who lost her husband just three weeks ago - and somehow she managed to get out of bed AND get on a plane AND show up at this massive event. And Jennifer - the warrior - who is only 32 and has already been widowed twice and is raising six kids now on her own. I meet a woman who traveled alone all the way from Australia just to be there - knowing no one when she got there, and her husband died less than a year ago. I watch my dear friend Kelley do an incredible stand-up comedy act all about death and the death of her husband - getting widowed people to laugh harder than they probably have since their partner died. I mean wow people. Who needs Oprah when we've got all these widowed people around?! And somehow we are all just opening our hearts fully - with tears and with laughter. SO much laughter. So much understanding and kindness.

There are moments that I just stand there in this great big ocean of courage and take it all in. The unfathomable pain of everyone there crashes into me like a ten foot wave, but the love… the love and the extraordinary strength of so many willing to share themselves fully changes my entire perspective on what it means to be widowed….

I leave the conference on Sunday and head for the airport… I am wearing my "Hope Matters" shirt, and I realize… I am different. I am changed and I can feel it. No longer am I a woman who is fighting with all her might against the idea of being a widow… suddenly, I AM a widow - and no part of me is fighting it inside. I am walking around a crowded airport literally wearing my identity, and for the first time in this whole horrible, excruciating, exhausting, terrifying, earth-shattering journey… I am PROUD.

I am proud to call myself a widow. I am proud that anyone around me can read it right there on my shirt. I don't want to hide it away. I don't want to hide myself away. I don't care if I make every single person in a five mile radius uncomfortable. Because the thing is… there will be someone in that crowd who is hurting just as bad as me. And if I can be honest about my pain, it helps them be honest about theirs too. That is what all these brave people taught me - they were honest about their pain, and they allowed me to let my guard down and be honest about mine (and it turns out, I am still SO NOT OKAY with ANY of this and have been putting on a really good brave face for a long time). Everyone there helped me to realize that I really am strong, even in my most broken moments - we all are.

I don't think I even realized how much of a wall I had built up over the past 2 years, it's so easy to do and happens so gradually. This life may not be pretty a lot of the time, and everyone may not want to look at it or hear about it, but I have been reminded that hiding myself and my truth away does not help me - or anyone else - to heal. I need to be who I am, where I am, exactly how I am and to keep letting people into my life who can support that. I also need to make sure I am sitting with my pain and honestly seeing it too. I guess I just needed an army of other widowed people to help me remember that.

This experience definitely opened my eyes and made me realize that now, in my new life, this is a club I DO want to be a part of. And I plan to be, for a very very long time, coming back to Camp Widow each year. And I hope that next year - if it feels right for you - you will join me too.

Related Links:
Camp Widow

A Beginning in the End

A lot of us talk about various times during this horrible journey where a shift begins to happen. It's nothing concrete or tangible, it may not even be something we can easily define… all we know is that something has changed in us and the way we view what has happened to us. That is the shift.

Since the new year began, I've been feeling as though something within me is on the move… some part of me is pushing outward and trying to pull me with it. Somewhere in the middle of this, I happened to write this post about sharing our stories through images. In that post, I shared a few very personal portraits of me. I'll be honest, I felt seriously freaked out to share that. Even though I take hundreds of photos a week, always I am behind the lens. It is somehow entirely more vulnerable for me to step in front of it. Far more vulnerable than sharing paragraphs of honest, raw words even are. So this all makes me quite nervy. But something shifted after I posted those pictures. A part of me woke up it felt like, or realized it wanted to do more of that. I owe that in large part to the profound support from everyone here who read and commented on that post.

It's been a little over a month since that post, and I am now in my 5th week of a year-long self portrait series. It already feels like I've been working on it for months. I have become so completely consumed by it - body, heart, mind, and soul. I cannot quite explain what is happening, I just know I am feeling pulled very strongly into it… and when that happens, I listen. I have an infinite number of visuals in my mind that have formed about what grief feels like - and what my journey of grief has been thus far. In these early weeks of this project I realized that I am stepping into something very deep and profound for my own healing by beginning to create these mental images literally and visually.

After writing hundreds of thousands of words over the past year and a half, writing really began to lose its healing effect for me in the past 3-4 months. It's as if my very soul was saying it is time to tell my story another way. So I've been struggling with this for a while now, continuing to try and write, and struggling more and more with it. Continuing to be on the lookout for what will feel more right. As soon as I began shooting these images a few weeks ago, it clicked. I knew instantly that I had found my new direction. I have to laugh a little because really it was right in front of my nose all along… literally. The very camera that my fiancé bought me for my 27th birthday, which started my journey with photography five years ago, which I still use to take all of my photos. The camera that gave me some of my first breaths of calm and peace and stillness after he died. Its been here all along. And while I've put my soul into all of my photos since he died, never had I thought to put my body into them until now. And I know, in the way that I know the grass is green, that this is where I am supposed to be for the next part of healing myself.

I won't stop writing entirely of course - I still have things I want to share through words, but they will be taking a back seat and serving as a support to my photos. On my creative blog, where I am posting each weekly image, I will also be sharing some of my journaling and other thoughts that pertain to the themes of each image.

This is an excerpt from the full post for the image above:

“I often imagine what it would be like if I stumbled on a sacred doorway to the other side and cautiously walked through the threshold… what would it be like? It would be a still, sacred place with an air of mystery around it. A space deeply connected to nature, so much so that even the trees have bowed in unison with its purpose. I wonder what it would look like as I stepped through to the other side? Would it look just like woods here, only filled with those I love who have passed on? Would I see him standing there, through the trees, and would we sit down together on a fallen log and share all the adventures we have both had since we last saw each other?

Or would it look like something entirely different – would I have no arms or legs at all? Would we be but two ambient forces flowing in a vast, open plain? Would there be no words, or any need for words? In this version, our spirits infuse more and more closely until we eventually become as one – the very original of how we began. Both of these visions give me hope. They help me see how beautiful it will be to share of my life on earth when I return to the ones I love on the other side.

How do you imagine a gateway like this to be? Is it somewhere specific, does it look or feel a certain way to you? What do you imagine it to be like on the other side if you stepped through that portal? How does make you feel to imagine sharing with those who have passed on about your life here on earth since you last saw each other? What sort of stories will you have to share?

Personally, I think its so valuable to form our own individual stories of these aspects of death. Sure, its all just imagination - but folks, imagination is a powerful tool for coping with reality. It helps me to keep my sights on what’s important… allows me focus on the kind of stories I want to create in my life.

Asking these questions serves as a reminder that our journey with those who have died is not over. We are merely on a long trip apart. Our job while still on earth is to live a life so rich and full that we arrive back home overflowing with grand stories of adventure and bravery and love… especially love. Stories that we will sit down and tell to our loved ones – or that they will infuse into their own being – and their souls will shine to see how boldly we have met life… to see that no matter how much pain we endured, we never let it stand in the way of our greatness.

-

To Read more and follow the project weekly, visit my blog, 12 Months of Creativity. And again, thank you for being here, for reading, for encouraging me, and for being part of my journey forward. You have made such a difference in my life.

-

Turning Pain to Love

In 2012, when his death was so fresh, I needed to talk. About the pain, the fear, the agony, the anger, the loss, the accident, the future we will not have, the children we won't raise, the wedding we won't share… all of it. I wanted to crawl out of my skin with all the pain. I talked and cried almost every single day to someone about my pain. I talked to everyone. Even inappropriately so.

No literally… I have told my story - complete with shameless tears - to perfect strangers. Including customers at the gallery I worked at, a seamstress I had hemming a pair of pants for me, and my masseuse. Really anyone was prey to my grief attacks for about a year there. Sometimes it ended up weird or awkward, but most of the time, it didn't.

Most of the time, it would allow them to share something really vulnerable in their life (the seamstress it turns out was a widow herself many years back, and has since remarried to a wonderful man), or help them simply feel honored that I would trust them enough to share. Almost every time, we both ended up in tears and hugging each other. It turns out, it doesn't really matter if we know each other - we can all give that exchange to one another just by listening and honoring one another where we are.

Looking back, I can begin to understand it this way:
Sharing pain transforms it back into love. I stretch out my arms - with a piece of my pain held in my hands - to someone, to anyone who will have it. It is always a risk that they will not reach back, always, but I know I need to try if my heart is to survive this without becoming hardened. So I reach and I show them my pain. And my hope is that they reach back. And usually, they do. They take that small piece of my pain in their hands. They see it, touch it, come to know it. They turn it over in their hands and take it to their hearts and feel it for a moment. And then they give it back to me, but when it is returned to my hands… miraculously, every time, I find that it is no longer pain at all, but love. They have completely transformed that one small piece - with nothing more than a simple act of acknowledging it, and therefore acknowledging me.

Because our pain, you see, is really just the part of ourselves that has loved fully and deeply and come to be broken. When we give a piece of it to someone, and they receive it with compassion, they can return it back to us as love - as it once was. To me, this has been what healing is about. Taking the chance to be vulnerable and share my pain, bit by bit, day by day… reaching my hands out again and again and again… each time holding a single grain of sand from the desert of pain that resides in my heart. And each time receiving back a single grain of love.

It is a lifelong process, grain by grain. And no, we never do turn all those grains back into love. There will always be some pain amidst our hearts, but looking at it this way helps me to see how every person who has touched my life - and everyone who will - helps me to transform my pain back into love. He did this for me too, well before I was aware. Our vulnerability with each other helped us to turn each other's pain from the days before we met back to love. And now, by the force of his death, I am having to learn a new way to do this. It is time to let others be part of that journey… let them turn my pain back to love, and give the same back to them. I am hoping that by sharing this, it does a little of that for both you and me.

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"And Then.." Part 2

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Well friends.. my time has come.

I am retiring from widow’s voice.

Today is my last blog.

I've been thinking about quitting for a couple of months now. I couldn't figure out why I wanted to quit something that has always brought me such relief and peace.

While talking to a friend about not writing anymore, he said “The Melinda I knew a year ago was a widow. Being a widow was your identity and made you who you were. The Melinda I know now has been widowed but is not a widow. It no longer defines you.”

Ah ha. It clicked. After the three year anniversary of my husband’s suicide I made major changes. Not changes that I actually went out and did. It just happened slowly, piece by piece, over time inside of me, slowly changing me.. suddenly I was no longer a widow. Being widowed happened to me but it did not consume me and my everyday life anymore.

A year ago I honestly thought being widowed would kill me. I was in so much pain I didn’t understand how I kept waking up every day. I now have days that are rough, they can be sharp, but they don’t leave me completely useless. I can cry and grieve and move on with my day.. the rough days no longer destroy my day. I can now sit with my grief.. and move on.

While I will always be widowed and it will always hurt, I will always miss my best friend.. but I am moving forward and finding peace. I don’t live in the horrible memories of my husband’s final days and his suicide.

I was honestly a little upset and scared to tell Michele that I was retiring.. especially because I couldn't quite figure out why I felt it was time to retire. She said “I love the transitioning of writers on our blog, because it means we are healing. And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.”

She is right. I wrote to heal. I told my story to heal. I told my story to get it out of my soul. Now I am healing.

For that I will always be thankful for Michele and Soaring Spirits. Thank you guys for allowing me a place to write and to heal. Thank you for believing in me and believing my story would make a difference.

I will miss my readers.. but please remember that if I can walk out of this and heal.. so can you. 

Being widowed will not always identify you.

With that I am off to work on my “And then..”

Let me introduce the new Sunday writer, Sarah Treanor -

Sarah is an artist and writer out of south-central Texas. She lost her fiancé on June 12, 2012 at the age of 29. He was a helicopter pilot who had just finished flight school and landed his dream job as a commercial pilot. While on a contract, he was riding along with another pilot when they hit power lines and crashed. He was killed instantly.

Two months after his death, she quit her job as a designer, left the city, and moved to the country to stay with his family and focus on healing. With a fire to continue in his footsteps and live her own dreams, she is now devoting much of her time to her art and writing – including recording her journey and their life together on her blog http://our1000days.com. She has said that no amount of pain is a match for her fire to live life as an adventure - the way they did - and she wants to inspire others who have endured loss to do the same.

Welcome Sarah!

Phoenix

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Last Wednesday I had a session with an amazing healer right when I thought I couldn't go another step in this life without something major happening to lighten the pain I was experiencing in my heart and soul.

I had hit a wall and wanted to be done feeling heartbroken and sorrowful, uncomfortable in my own skin and completely terrified by the future. I'd been feeling bitter and resentful, too, when I thought of how my life, when it comes to loss by death, seemed to be the reverse of what we think of as the normal progression. Instead of becoming an adult first and then seeing both parents die and then living a long life and then watching a spouse die, I'd already seen all three foundational people leave this earth in terrible ways by the age of 35. I couldn't (still can't) imagine the rest of my life suffering through more losses than that. I just felt done. I wanted to trade in my heart and soul and life for another one. A do over.

I wanted to feel happiness for others who had both loving parents and a loving life partner. I wanted to feel gratitude for a beautiful sunset, my furballs, art, music, comedy, nature and all the other things that normally make my heart happy, but nothing was getting through the veil of sadness.

The healer saw me at the point at which I could no longer hold my shit together, even in public. I was a trembling, sobbing heap of sadness.

In my sessions with him, he told me that his spirit guide knew that Dave hadn't passed all the way over into the spirit world. He was stuck in the middle void because we were connected with an energy cord, a heart cord. He said that for both of us to go on and do what we needed to do, the cord would need to be severed. He also said he'd seen my soul pattern and that it was the Phoenix. A challenging soul that had chosen a life of suffering only to rise from the ashes and heal, first the self, and then the earth herself. He said I was an Earth healer and that the pain of the earth as we abuse her was my pain as well. I was here to help her in some way.

Now, to hear this and not dismiss it immediately is a testament to how vastly I've changed since Dave died. Before he died I didn't even really understand what a chakra was, or pay one iota of attention to healing arts, or the afterlife much less soul patterns and heart cords. I would have instantly dismissed this sort of information as quackery.

I no longer dismiss anything. Especially if it brings me healing, peace, or answers of some sort. I don't even care if any or all of my healing is because of the placebo effect. The result is the same. I feel better. I don't think much beyond that.

The sessions I had with him were intended to melt away the protective shell around my heart, keeping me from truly living and severing the cord keeping Dave in that middle ground and me stuck in so much pain.

I can say that since then, I've noticed the following (and I'm feeling extremely cautious about any and all good results since it's only been a few days and I know the tumultuous nature of grief and depression so well)...
1. I feel more able to feel. Both good and bad emotions are flowing a little more through me without crippling me.
2. I can enjoy food more than ever.
3. I am, almost without thinking about it, doing chakra breathing exercises and visualizing/meditating for the first time in my life. Meditating had always been incredibly uncomfortable for me and I'd have to force myself before.
4. My voice is stronger and there is a light in my eyes.
5. I feel more present.

I'm still not sleeping really well and I still have a tremor in my arms and hands that stubbornly won't go away but I'd say for the last few days I've felt more alive than dead and that's new for me.

A discovery I've had since the healing is that I've never allowed myself to throw a really good ANGRY fit for the loss I've experienced and the pain I've felt. When faced with adversity I get small and quiet and cry. Reacting that way, I disappear into my pain. Somehow, a new righteous anger has displaced a little of that and I've been feeling that it's also replaced some anxiety. Instead of disappearing into the pain and sadness, I felt larger than it for the first time.

I've felt more powerful than I can remember feeling in a long time, if ever. Also, more than a year ago, when I first sold my house and moved to Portland I became briefly obsessed with the phoenix bird. Some of my computer passwords contain the word phoenix and I considered a phoenix tattoo for a while.

I guess maybe I really am a Phoenix. Rising from the ashes isn't for sissies.