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...

  If you look around my house this Christmas season you will definitely see the effects of motherhood here. You'll see school books strewn about all throughout the place. Constant reminders of frustration and fights that feel completely unnecessary to a mom and completely life-changing to a kid. I never wanted to homeschool my teenage daughter. I simply didn't want this kind of hard. But I saw her struggles and her self-esteem start to crack as she fell more and more behind her peers in school. A scar from her years of home-hopping which led to inconsistent schooling. A kid who got overlooked and pushed along anyway. So I pulled her out and we started from the ground up. And she's bright, let me tell you. She's catching up one day at a time, and I get a front row seat to see her shine. I push her more than she wants, and she hates when I do it. But I didn't become her mother because of what she could do for me...I became her mother because I knew what I could do for...

  "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 ...

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...

I sat with my daughter on the beaches of Virginia and I breathed in the salty air. Writing while I am at the beach is one of my most favorite things to do. There is something about the sand and the waves that brings clarity to my soul.  So, I sat with some hard things this week, while my kid splashed in the waves and our dog tried to eat seaweed any chance he got. I sat and I prayed and I wept and I wrote. She's lost so much in her short life, this wonderful, frustrating, kind, heartbroken kid of mine. She's been left and hurt and broken...and she deserves so much more. And, somehow, I think that I have this false sense of guilt that I need to be that "more". She should have had John as her dad, I should have had John as a partner in this journey. And somewhere along the way I think I bought into the lie that I  had to be both mother and   father...both Katharine and John to her.  And I have failed, guys. I've failed often. Because, as amazing and wonderful as w...

Hey Kid... I was reading though the pages of our Mother/Daughter journal and I saw that you'd written something new...and my whole heart just felt like it could burst. I hurt for you and I hope for you all at once.  One day you're going to look back on these early years and you will finally understand everything that went on behind closed doors in order to bring about our "everlasting family". All those questions I dodged or only half-answered. All the time I spent on budgeting and paperwork. All the moments I felt overwhelmed and confused about all the work and legality it takes to make a stranger your child.  Babe, believe me when I say that I only wanted you to carry what I thought your 13 year old heart could bear. I didn't want to lay my heaviness and my hurts on you. I shared them with you when I could, when they wouldn't burden you. I wanted you to be included in these important steps but I still wanted that childlike freedom to fill your soul. The free...

  Once upon a time I dreamed of a love that would last a lifetime and of children that would fill my home. I was so young and so  naive. I was filled with the kind of hope that brokenness hadn't invaded yet. And I loved every part of the journey that was unfolding before me...once upon a time. Once upon a time, my heart broke. I couldn't conceive a child with my husband and, year after year, hope turned to fear and I forgot what it felt like to not have doubts. I was on the cusp of something great and yet I had no idea...once upon a time. Once upon a time my dream came to life. I felt my son move and grow inside me. I dreamed and loved with a man whose legacy breathed through me. A little redheaded boy who loved the sound of engines revving and midnight snacks....once upon a time. Once upon a time half of my world died. A little boy, who never took a breath, somehow stole ours away. Deep grief was tattooed on our souls and the burden of suffering became our companion...on...

  I have a deep heart check every single time I pass a motorcycle on the road. I stop whatever I'm saying or thinking and I take a moment to acknowledge the rider. I watch them. I look at their bike. I catalogue their protective gear (or lack thereof). I take a moment to take it all in and I make sure that I really see them. And then I pray the same prayer for each and every one of the riders I see. "God, please let them make it home ." Because one day, a driver didn't see my rider...and he didn't make it home .  None of them will ever know, the prayers said on their behalf, in memory of the greatest tragedy of my life. But I will always remember the day that my husband stopped living, and I continued on in his absence. And I would never wish that on anyone. So every time...I pray that they make it home . I remember walking through the halls of my very empty home and wondering where the spirit of life had disappeared to. How could these walls no ...

My daughter went to bed the evening before her birthday and I sat in my living room and thought about our life together. This was our very first birthday together, and the big 13th birthday for her!   What kind of birthday mom was I going to be? What kind did I want to be?  If I had any real sense about me I would have been more prepared. I certainly didn't plan well considering it's summer and my girl is around me 24/7. It's not easy to pop into a store and purchase decorations. I sat there and realized that I hadn't planned anything out besides her gifts. And I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. My siblings' kids all wake up to balloons and decorations in celebration of their birthdays. I always thought that I would be the same way, but there I sat, without having purchased a single decoration in preparation for my kid's big day. Would she be disappointed when she woke up? Would she wish I had made it a bigger deal? Would she feel how truly ex...

  If you know me well you know that physical touch is most definitely NOT my "love language". It never has been.  I appreciate a short and sweet hug as a greeting or farewell to someone I rarely see...key word: rarely . I hug people because I know it is what they need from me. I can appreciate that physical touch is the love language of so many others. I can appreciate the fact that the family culture that some people have involves consistent hugging. And I am so very willing to provide people with that form of connection. I think that it is a naive to believe that we should only expect people to reach out to us in our specific love language without putting emphasis on reaching out to others in the ways that they are naturally inclined to receive love in. It is also naive to not accept love when it is given in someone else's love language...to them that means something very significant. They are loving you in the way they wish to be loved. It's a treasure. And so I n...

I have often wondered how my daughter must feel about my family's relationship with my late husband. She never got to meet him. She came into our family after the harshest of grieving had happened, 7 months after he died. She still saw us mourn him and miss him...but she never knew him. And there is such a travesty in that. He would have loved her beyond comprehension...and I have no doubt that she would have connected with him far quicker than she has with me.  "I wish I could have met John...I think he would have been a great dad." Me too, babe, me too. He really would have been amazing. I am so incredibly sorry that he never had the opportunity to father her. Because it would have been amazing to behold...I just know it. But I also am just so thankful that she did not have to lose him...that her heart did not have to bear that brokenness as well...silver linings and all that. She still lost him, but much more indirectly than the rest of us. She lost him without the tra...