Today would have been your 60th birthday. I can’t comprehend 60. I can see you though, with your white-red hair, big beard and fantastic laugh playing Santa every Christmas. I am sad for all the things you’ve missed, and all the things I haven’t been able to share with you. I am sad that so many of the good things that have happened have happened because of the catalyst that was your death. We would have had an epic 60th for you. We would have loved on you so hard. We still do. Every day. You are missed. Happy Birthday my love… I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since I’ve been able to tell yo ..read more

Someone died last night at work. I don’t know his name. I wouldn’t share if I did but I don’t know it. He had his family sitting outside the room, asking us to do everything in our power to bring him back and make him live. I heard his wife say at one point “I just want him to live.” OMG do I know that feeling. I wasn’t assigned to the code team last night, but it was a long code so I spelled off my co-worker. She had been unable to get her work done and so we worked as a team and each took the time to help where we could. I’d hear “no pulse!” and run back into the room, and take over compress ..read more

My writing has gotten more sporadic this year. It’s not because I don’t have anything to say. I’m just not talking. I’m not allowing myself the outlet to express myself. I’m struggling to cope. I’m struggling to cope with his death, with my new life, my kid’s diagnosis, my kid’s health, my job, the pandemic… all of it. I’m hoping to bring back writing as a way to cope. It worked for a long time. Maybe it can work again. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have things to say that others want to hear. I haven’t stopped being a widow. I haven’t stopped missing him. I still struggle to navigate a world withou ..read more

We don’t expect them. It’s kinda like living in the Cariboo. Wait 15 mins, the weather will change. I had a grief storm in a most unexpected place yesterday. I have this cyst in my axilla (armpit). Last year it blew up and got infected and I was off work and on IV antibiotics for 10 days. This was a couple weeks after my kid had brain surgery. Well. The fucker grew back. Within 6 months I could feel it there again. So I asked for, and got, a referral to a surgeon (Dr M) who said I could remove it or wait and see if it blows up again. I’m all for the get rid of the problem. A dog that bites wil ..read more

Tell me how 8 years has passed? Tell me how 8 years ago right now (615am) I was waiting for the last of the people to come be a part of his death. Tell me how, after 8 years, it still seems as surreal as it did the moment it was happening? I’ve distracted myself fairly well this year.  Worked a shit-tonne of overtime, went and had major surgery on the 24th. I’m post op day 2. But the tears are still just behind the surface. They are a constant threat today and I’ve only been awake for a couple hours. I miss him.  I miss his steadfast, calm ways. I miss his laugh. I miss his passion f ..read more

It’s a little awkward when the grief storm hits at work. It’s a little more awkward when the grief storm hits at work and it’s been 8 years since he died. It’s a lot awkward when you just feel like a hot mess all the time because you’re grieving over your long dead husband and no one around you knew him or knew the MarkandJane you were. There’s no one in my life on a daily basis except my children who knew Mark. They don’t bring him up to me, I don’t bring him up to them much. But there’s no one I can talk to and they would *know* when I talked about his laugh or his passion for fishing or the ..read more

It’s been a while since I last wrote. So much is going on in my life and I don’t really get a chance to sit down and process. I don’t take the time to write about my fitness (non) journey, or my widowed journey or my life in general. Today is June 19. In one week it will have been 8 years since Mark died. His name doesn’t come up very often anymore. No one talks about him but me. The kids are moving on with their lives, the two oldest  with kiddos of their own. I don’t know if either of them talk to their kids about Grandpa. It makes me sad. There’s a line from a song by Macklemore I hear ..read more

Note to readers:  this is a blog post that was in drafts from 2013. I didn’t post it then, I don’t know why.  I’m not sure where the deodorant went. But that smell. I miss it.  I’ve finally got some time to go through and read the blogs I’ve been missing.  Gawd I’ve been missing them.  THIS daily prompt caught my eye and I needed to write… I keep a couple of things at my bedside, on my vanity table.   One is the collection of dimes from the last 14 months.  The other is a half used men’s deodorant. It was Mark’s.  I am blessed.  I have a video of him talking so I get to hear his voice.  I have ..read more

I struggled with a title for this one. I’m on night shift, on the ALC ward, which means they’re sleeping. I do my hourly rounds, make sure they’re all still breathing, but once my chores were done, there’s not much else to do. So I watch Netflix. I’ve been watching Timeless again. I want to re-watch the seasons before I watch the finale. Tonight, for whatever reason, I put on Grey’s Anatomy.  I know what happens in Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve watched the entire series a few times. It makes me bawl every freaking time. This time? This time I turned it off just after the opening scene.  The one where D ..read more

I didn’t expect to.  You are a stranger to me. You weren’t my patient. You weren’t my friend. I didn’t know you. I wasn’t part of the team that tried to save you. But I grieve for you. A life cut short.  Similar age to my children. For what? Parents cry tonight. Siblings mourn. Cousins and extended family are brokenhearted. A family is torn apart – a vital piece of it missing, gone forever. I grieve for them too. The family with the weight of your loss forever etched in their minds and hearts. I grieve for the friends who are left behind. The ones who saw the friend who died, the friends who s ..read more