From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

  4 years a widow... 4 years into this journey and I can say, with some certainty, that it is a whole lot easier than it was 4 years ago...3 years ago...2 years ago...even 1 year ago. So, at the very least, it's trending up, eh? I haven't sobbed hysterically over my dead husband in ages, years even. The grief is much more sophisticated now, I get choked up, maybe let a tear or two fall out. Nothing quite so dramatic as the panic attacks I used to have. It's all quite tame and reasonable...you know...until its not...and it steals my breathe by sheer surprise. And a part of me forgets that there was ever a time when it felt normal for John to be dead. Because, 4 years in, it is normal. Normal for John to be dead. Normal to not know how to fix the broken things. Normal to sleep in bed alone. Normal to wish there was just a moment where I didn't have to manage all of these things all by myself. (Because being an independent woman is ridiculously overrated...0/10 - do not re...

    Let me be the keeper of the broken things. Give me the shards of memories you hold on to that hurt so much. Show me the stitches in your scars.  Let me carry them with you...for you. Because "grief demands a witness"...so let me be yours. I want to hear about your baby that barely got to be and how they changed your entire world while the world somehow kept spinning.  I want to hear about what haunts your dreams or keeps you up at night when the world seems to slumber peacefully around you. I want to hear why you cry in your car before going inside after everyone else has run in like its totally normal that you need an extra 5 minutes just to breathe it all out. My heart aches so much for the broken things of the world that we all clutch on to...terrified that if we stop clutching them that they'll slip through our fingers and the world will forget...we might forget. So let me keep your broken things too. And I will breathe the goodness of God into the shards and...

  You know, despite my tattoos...and piercings...and partially shaved head...I never considered that my look was very "alternative". At least not until someone said it was. I just thought that I was expressing myself in ways I might not have before. *I* like how I look...and I guess, if I'm being honest, what other people might think just doesn’t really factor into anything I do. But certainly not in the sense that I expect everyone to love everything about it all. My poor mom dislikes tattoos, my brother makes fun of my hair, and lots of people have said "oh...it's not quite my thing".  I never expected people to like these things about me the way I like them about me. I am not particularly bothered if it’s not your thing. It doesn't offend me. I'm not asking you to get a tattoo...or a piercing...or to shave your head. *I* did it because *I* wanted to...you just didn't factor into it. That being said...I've never been judged so...interesting...

  "Is adopting her harder than you thought it would be?"      I think, when I weighed the options back in 2021, before I brought my 12 year old daughter home, I knew how hard it could be. I accepted that it could be brutal. But, honestly, I hoped it wouldn't be. I hoped maybe, just maybe, trauma hadn't sunk deep into her bones and colored everything she did.  Some people may have different perceptions on how prepared I was, since I did jump into it pretty quickly. But I think that I did acknowledge, and accept, how hard it could be. But the reality of life is that there is no real way to know how hard anything actually is until you're living it. Meaning, I knew how hard it could be...but had no idea what that level of hard would actually feel like.  Because it hurts. Raising a broken teenager hurts. It hurts my daughter. It hurts me. It hurts our relationship. It just hurts.  But just because something hurts...does that mean we aren't called to do ...

  I was raised by a Christian father who, though far from perfect, loved his family. I had a front row seat to his relationship with my mother and loved being his daughter. Through him I learned that I wanted to find a man like him in all the best ways. I married my first and only boyfriend when I was 19 and spent 13 years growing up with him. Through him I learned that I was a valued (and treasured) partner and that life is unbelievably special when you adventure together...and when you love unconditionally. A doctor met me one time and performed a dozen tests on my body. He was unkind and judgmental and his indifference made me cry in shame. Through him I learned that I might not ever be able to have children. My only son was born after years of infertility. He never took a breath and his death took my entire life by storm. Through him I learned that joy and grief can exist side by side...even when, or especially when, it is hard to find the joy. My father-in-law loved two childr...

Sometimes I find myself living for you or at least wanting to live for you. It makes me so frustrated, if I’m being honest. Because there’s really nothing less satisfying than living for someone else. But I still find myself wishing I could just make you proud. Do things the right way…the best way…the perfect way.  Despite the fact that you’ve never once demanded perfection from me   Sometimes I shake off the dust of a hard days work and I want to wait for you to say it.  Please… Just say that you’re proud.  That’s all I’m hoping for. Just a few words that remind me that I’m still doing good. Still working hard. Still worthy of all the things the world tells me I’m not anymore.  I’m constantly shifting and changing and working my butt off to provide a wonderful life for my kid. It’s exhausting and sometimes I hate that you stopped telling me it.  Just say that you’re proud.  If you would just say it I think I could believe it. I could believe that I di...

John, I know you’re probably busy living your very best life in Heaven. I can’t imagine that earthly happenings matter much to those who’ve left us.  But I want it to matter anyway. I want to imagine that you can still care.  I’m sorry that I stopped reaching for you in the middle of the night. It was a slow and painful process of retraining my brain and body. After 13 years you just weren’t there anymore. And I had to remind myself over and over and over again. “He’s dead, Katharine. Dead. You’ll never find him when you reach for him anymore…one day you’ll have to just stop reaching”. And one day I did. I can’t remember when it was. When muscle memory and instinct faded away. But suddenly I didn’t have to remind myself anymore…my body finally accepted that you’d never be there anymore.  I’m sorry I got rid of your things. Your books and projects and broken treasures. You had such plans and dreams for all these things in your garage. And I threw them away. I sobbed and ye...

  I. Am. Brave. I say those words to myself over and over again as I clean out my dead husband's garage and tool boxes and old work truck. I say them as tears fall, creating tracks down my face as they mix with the dirt and grease that have somehow found their way to my cheeks.  I whisper them as I sit in a freezing cold garage after hours of work that seem to not make a dent in reshaping John's old haven into something usable for the widow that I am now.  I sob them as I throw away another treasure, another memory...another moment lost forever. Just things...they're just things. But...sometimes "things" are all the tangibleness that's left after a 13 year marriage dissolves into tragedy. I. Am. Brave. I say those words as I sit at my kitchen table and homeschool my teenage daughter. Even though I never wanted to homeschool her. Even though I thought that I just didn't have the mental capacity to take on one more hard thing these days.  I say it as she sto...

  I went by the site of my husband's fatal motorcycle accident the other day. I stopped by just to see how it felt. If I still felt a little closer to John standing in the exact spot where his life ended. I always hope I feel...something... I want God to speak to me as I crouch down next to the spot where his life was stolen from him. I want a sign, a symbol, a reassurance that God still sees me...still remembers the widow He allowed me to become. Not that I actually think He’s forgotten me…but in the moment I stop and look at the same mountain that John surely looked at in the moments before his death…I just hope for a little something more for the heartache that he left behind.  But in all the times I've stopped by the accident site in the last 2.5 years, I've never received any type of sign. What I have experienced is the fading... The fading of the stains on the road from the accident. The fading of the grooves in the asphalt from his motorcycle. The fading of the mark ...

2023 has really been one heck of a year. Full of all the highs and lows that you can imagine come with the life of a widowed single mom in the midst of adopting her teenage kid. So, without further ado, here is my brief recap of 2023: 1. I still miss John. I don’t say that because I thought I wouldn’t anymore. But, just in case you were wondering, it still sucks that he died…and I still miss him.  2. You can, in fact, heal. You can face inconceivable trauma and you can heal. It's still sad and it still hurts...but healing happens if you put in the effort. (sidetone: I highly recommend EMDR therapy if you struggle with trauma triggers). 3. Adoption takes SO much more time, energy, and funds then it should. Zero regrets and it's worth every single bit of all of that...but still, can't it be more easily accessible? 2024 is gonna be the year we finally make it official...I hope. 4. Dating is half hope and half disappointment. The majority of men don't live up to the image t...