From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

    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 ...

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...

  John Died...2 years ago. 2 years...how has so much time passed? It feels like just yesterday I was writing about the 1 year anniversary of his death, congratulating all of us for surviving the brutality of that first year. Regardless, it feels like now is a good time to throw out some life updates, talk about how life as a 2nd year widow is going. It's great...definitely great...well, it's ok...sometimes it's ok...actually sometimes it's awful...it's always awful...no, no, it's usually fairly good...sometimes it's amazing. I guess it really just depends on the day... I no longer reach out in the middle of the night for him. I don't grab my phone to text him about something that just happened. I don't look for him in a crowd. I don't struggle to fall asleep alone. I don't even dream about him anymore... It would seem, that even my subconscious has truly accepted that he's gone. That's good...right? He is no longer a part of any of my...

  I find myself often reminded by the Holy Spirit that I am not some paragon of living a life of grief well. I wouldn't say that I struggle a lot with the mentality that I am...but I know that I could ...if I just gave myself a little leeway. If I just gave myself a little too much grace...I could see the pharisee in me. The pharisees of the New Testament relied on all the traditions and all the laws and all the order that God set in place to bring about connection prior to the coming of the Messiah. They relied so heavily on "checking the boxes" that they rejected the man who was sent to save them. They puffed up their chests with pride and relied on the letter of the law...completely forgetting the heart of the law. The heart that beat inside the chest of the very man they chose to hate. I want to live a good life. I want to do the right things. I want to follow the perfect order of things that God laid out for us in the Bible. The pharisee in me wants to check off all ...

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...

  "I don't want to do this." I give myself permission to whisper those words into the painful world I find myself living in sometimes. I look at the hard things I have to tackle all by myself and I allow myself the moment to grieve. I didn't want this hard life...I didn't want these hard things...I didn't... But sometimes we simply have to. Life throws everything at us and even if we don't want to, we have to. So, I allow myself the moment to accept that this was never how life was supposed to be, a moment to accept that this is hard and this hurts. And then I do it...whatever the hard thing is...I do it. Because, usually, I don't have a choice. I have had a lot of people ask me why I push myself? Why not ask for help? There are so many people who would willingly step in to help a widow. "The Bible calls us to help the widows and the orphans" they remind me... There was once a time when I was incredibly cared for. There was once a man who h...

Do you know how hard it can be to live the life my late husband and I cultivated specifically for a future together? All the plans, all the dreams, and all the hopes... He left me behind with all these broken things that he was fully capable of fixing…things I have no idea what to do with. The old water pump he planned on replacing.   The Land Rover he laughed about even as it broke every month and he spent far more hours than he planned tuning it up.   The broken doorknobs that keep adding up.  The ridiculous internet that has only gotten worse the more we try to fix it   The dishwasher that decided to start dying this weekend   …me. I had to figure out how to survive without him. How to fix or replace all the broken things he enjoyed so much. He loved things because they were broken. He loved that they had a history…a story. He wanted to be a part of that legacy. To give something a new life, a new hope.  And then he died…leaving me with all the broken th...

  Here I sit, all alone in my darkened house, having lived through my 34th birthday.  I did it, I turned the age that John was never able to turn...and I survived the grief that accompanies that deep knowledge...what an incredible privilege. I have always loved that my birthday was surrounded by Thanksgiving. It's a privilege to have my life so connected to the act of giving thanks. To the gathering of family and friends. To the pick-up football games. To all the Thanksgiving traditions.  I never knew what journeys God would bring about in my life in regards to thankfulness. I was given so many wondrous years of joy and hope and life...before sorrow and grief and suffering took such a strong hold. I have often felt like Job, with suffering upon suffering lavished upon my life. And I have sat in the ashes and grieved the deepest of losses...more than once. And I have been asked to still love...called upon to dig deeper...ushered to give just a little more...time and time a...

It is incredible when you look back at the days that have shaped your life. Marriages, births, and deaths have shaped so many lives in more ways than one. But life is also shaped in the mundane days. The days that you don't even remember...but the days that you lived. Today I am 33 years, 11 months, and 19 days old... Tomorrow I will have lived more days than my husband did... John was 33 years, 11 months, and 19 days old when he died.  It seems like such a long period of time. So many days and so many years that added up into such a wonderful life. One that I got to be a part of for 12 years, 11 months, and 9 days as his wife. John died 11 days before his 34th birthday and 22 days before our 13th wedding anniversary. Sometimes it feels extra cruel that we were so close to those special days but we just missed them. But, even if we had had those extra days, I would have wanted just a few more...any more. I always told John that I had to be the one to die first, because I never want...

I wasn't prepared for the death of my son...but I was far less prepared for the death of my husband. And, to be honest, I fell apart.  I was lost and lonely and so very broken. I couldn't hold myself  together and I allowed every broken part of myself to fall away. I gave myself permission to be broken, to be lost, to sit in the ashes, and to just grieve the greatest loss of my life.  But I only allowed myself a certain amount of time. I didn't want to wallow. I didn't want drown in my grief. I didn't want to be that broken for longer than absolutely necessary.  I fell apart...and then I told myself that I couldn't be apart any longer.  So I made very intentional efforts to heal and to process and to grieve productively. Is that even a real thing? I don't know, but convinced myself that it was, and I proceeded as such.  I'm not gonna say that those things didn't help. Because they did...so very much. I'm a firm believer that we develop the cultur...