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...

  "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...

     Tomorrow would have have been my 15th wedding anniversary with John, had he not passed away just shy of our 13th anniversary.  It still sometimes boggles my mind that "death do us part" happened so much sooner than we planned. And yet here I am...out in the dating world attempting to find "it" again. It certainly has me feeling some type of way, let me tell ya. And I think the past 1.5ish years I've spent in the dating world has also made lots of other people feel some type of way. "It is what it is" seems a bit of a cliched response...but it really  is  what it is. In the absence of a husband with whom to celebrate a covenant made many many moons ago...I feel like now is a good time to update the world (or my small corner of it) on how dating as a widowed Christian mother in her 30s is going. Here are some things I've learned: -"Christian" is a term used by so many men...yet personified by so very few of them. I am in a somewhat con...

  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...