From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

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...

  The Israelites lost a brutal battle at Ebenezer... They had forsaken the God of their people and were embroiled in idol worship. False gods prevailed in their lives and they seemed to forget that God cannot dwell where an idol dwells. They lost a great battle and the Ark of the Covenant was ripped away from them. The very presence of God...lost. It took Israel 20 years to return to the God of her youth. This revival led them into a victorious battle and returned the Ark of the Covenant to them. A glorious reunion, a reawakening. In order to remember the victory at the hands of their great God, the prophet Samuel placed a stone at the very place of their victory and he called the stone Ebenezer (Stone of Help), saying "Thus far God has helped us." Though this story is not my own, I will say that I find myself so often identifying with the struggles and triumphs of the Israelites.  Come, walk with me through my Ebenezer battlefield... I would like to show you what I see of my...

 Hey Babe, For the record, I still freaking hate this. I hate that you’re dead. I hate that some stupid ridiculously selfish choice ended your whole life…and changed mine forever.  I didn’t want this. I promised to love you forever, to choose you forever, to honor you forever…and forever freaking ended way too soon. And I still hate it. I wanted forever with you, John, I still want that forever with you.  I understand all the crazy things that widows do now. I understand why they get rid of all the things. I understand why they sell their house and move. I understand why they cut people off. I understand why they hide. I understand why they run away.  Because I’ve wanted to do all of those things, Babe, I have. I’ve wanted to take all the “easy” way outs. I’ve wanted to just hate the world you left me all alone in. I’ve wanted to force my heart to stop feeling all of the things…even the good things. Because having you missing from me was the deepest cut to my soul I’...

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...

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 remember waking up in the middle of the night and noticing that John wasn’t in bed with me. I went looking for him and found him in the kitchen. I went to hug him but he brushed me off and stepped away. I asked him to come to bed with me but he shook his head and said he didn’t want to be with me anymore. When I asked why, he spent several minutes explaining all the ways that I had failed at showing him love. I was selfish, and self-centered. I was dramatic and overbearing. I didn’t give space for him to be who he wanted. He did not love me anymore because I did not love him enough.  I stared at him and begged him to give me another chance, just one more chance. I had never realized how horrible of a wife I’d been, but I could change. But he refused to give me another chance. He said he’d found someone else, someone who loved him well, and he had decided to love her instead.  And then I woke up.  Nightmares have been plaguing me lately. At first they were somewha...

  I’ve gotten a few tattoos since John died. It’s been very therapeutic and healing every time I’ve gone in with a vision and come out with a permanent scar on my body that represents an aspect of my life and my healing.  But today…today I made some mistakes. And now those mistakes are represented on my body in a very permanent way.  Hard things have been building in my life for weeks. I’ve consistently struggled with deep and heavy emotions, sometimes feeling like they come out of nowhere. Small things have felt too heavy. Minor inconveniences have felt unconquerable. And yet, somehow I was able to truck along. I took care of things, I handled things, I was brave and strong and all the things I needed to be.  Until I wasn’t.  I got an okay tattoo from a man who was rude and arrogant and hurtful from the very start of our session together. There were ways I could have corrected the situation but, honestly, I was incapable of even processing through the kind of e...