From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

  On December 27, 2021 - almost 7 months after my husband died - I drove 4 hours to pick up a 12 year old girl who needed a home.  4 years later I rang in the anniversary of bringing her home by sleeping on the floor of her hospital room.  Hours before, after a great day together, she dissolved into a tantrum that she couldn’t control and I couldn’t bring her out of. She was hurting herself and threatening me and I had to call the police so she would stop.  We ended up in the ER for a behavioral health evaluation (not our first rodeo) and it was decided that the best thing for her was to spend a week at an in-patient facility. 4 years ago I drove her home…and today I had to let someone else drive her away.  This is the part that everyone warned me about 4 years ago. The hardness of this part…the possible hopelessness of this part. The brokenness of this part. My daughter’s situation isn’t abnormal in the adoption community, or even in the parenting of biological...

  My daughter doesn't call me Mom. There's a brutality in that that doesn't seem to fade. Because it's not just a name. If it was just a name I'd be okay with it...with not being Mom. But it's so much more, and in this season of life, my heart is seemingly constantly being broken in the wake of a daughter who does not want me to be her mother.  I have held in secret deep hurts and brokenness in the life of my teenager's adoption. Partly because it's not only my story, but hers as well. But this year has been so very heavy...and I have so often felt so very alone in that heaviness. Who understands the rejection of RAD? Of ODD? Of ADHD? Of Adoption? Of a child who is so very loving and kind to everyone except their mom? I've read post after post of mothers, of fathers, of siblings, of children who have faced or are facing the exact life we are living, and they a balm to my weary soul. Comfort in the knowledge that we are not alone...that I am not alon...

    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...

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...

  "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...

  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 usually hate the phrase "learning to love myself". In general, out in the world, it seems to mean that you're asking for a pass to act however you want. Because you have to "love yourself". No thanks, I hate that aspect of it. But I have been confronted with that phrase SO many times during my healing journey. Because I became someone I never thought that I would have the be. My entire worldly identity was rewritten in one moment and, if I being honest...I wasn't happy with who I became. Mainly because loving the new me felt like a betrayal of the old me. Confusing, huh? It's just such a paradox...and it felt infinitely confusing and complicated at every turn. I had to be brave and move forward... I had to be strong and remember... I had to carry legacies and let go of the past... No one could tell me how exactly to go about it, and honestly, I felt so very different than the widows who'd walked this path before me. I felt misunderstood and broke...

  I discovered something about myself recently... I discovered that I'm actually terrified of making new friends.  I've never actually been that great at making new friends, in general, if I'm being honest. It's always been a joke between one of my best friends and myself, she makes the new friends and I just ride the coattails of her bravery.  But, before John died, I had actually started making very intentional efforts towards making and cultivating new friendships. I was doing it, making new friends, talking to strangers at parks, inviting them to play groups. Me! I was doing that. Then John died. And I forgot that I even knew how to make new friends. Because I shut myself up in my own little world and I stopped cultivating anything new. I couldn't bare it, you know, building something new. Because it took all of my efforts to keep my world alive, I couldn't introduce something new to the chaos that was my world for a time.  Sometime after life had settle bac...

  I never realized how highly I thought of myself before John died. How secure I was in who I was. Being happily married for so long and having healthy relationships with God, my family, and my friends made me feel like I was something truly special. John told me often how beautiful and attractive he found me. But who I was, at my core, that's what was really special...when you got me to open up, when you allowed me to shine, when you just gave me a chance. Living in a world without John has been an eye opening experience. Being on my own in every aspect of life is something I was never prepared for. There are just so many people I meet in so many different scenarios and sometimes it all feels so overwhelming. What if they don't give me a chance? What if I don't actually shine anymore? What if trauma has dulled me? What if grief has changed me to my very core? More and more I am learning how I am different now. I used to live life without walls and used to love so deeply an...

  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...

  Today I stood alone in my empty home and I allowed the silence to surround me. I stood in the empty halls of the house that I forced to become a home after my home died and I let the silence speak to me. All the while begging it to be gentle... Please don't ask more of me than I can give. Please do not remind me to be strong.  Please do not force me to be brave. Sometimes I feel like I am one breath away from giving up. One breath away from being asked to take on too much. One breath away from failing at everything that this life has demanded of me. I was never afraid of being alone before John died. I knew that, no matter what happened in our world, we would always have each other. Unfortunately, that sacred unity was destroyed on a small, two lane back road in Virginia...and the security I believed I had in life was destroyed along with it.  Guys, I'm not really all that brave. I'm terrified. I'm terrified so much the time.  I'm scared that I'm just going to...

  I read a romance novel this week. Romance was always my favorite genre to read. I loved love. I loved the journey that the characters took to find each other, to find their person. Because I knew, intimately, how it felt to find your person. To be fully known and fully loved, just as you are.  But...my romance turned into my tragedy... The irony being that if I had never loved, and been loved, so deeply, I would never have hurt so deeply. It was a cheesy romance. The kind that has you guessing the end about 30 pages in. But it still holds some simple joys. The meet cute, the animosity turned into interest, the understanding that they each have depths the other didn't see at first, the realization that they found their person, some silly misunderstanding that breaks them apart, and the climax that reunites them in declarations of forever and undying love.  Forever... Undying love... It was actually painful when I read that book...vividly remembering what I had and what I...