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~ the new reality of a "70 something"

herbiggirlpants

Tag Archives: loss

six…

05 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, chocolate, family, flowers, friends, girls, journey, loss, memories, missing, organs, six, step, time, widow, years

two thousand one hundred and ninety-one days since my beloved left me…

you would think that six years would make it easier…

some days it does seem a little easier… many days it doesn’t…

I do things that I’d never done before and I do them well… those big girl pants and all… but I would much rather have him beside me…

I continue to try to remember the good times and focus on them rather than feel sorry for myself… although there are certainly times when I wallow…

I’ve learned to feel those moments and sit in them and not push them aside… I believe that has helped me move forward…

as I write this the tears fall… over the last few weeks I’ve have been reminded of the days when George died and the memorial that followed… it has been very stress-filled as I have been reliving the hours and days immediately following his death…

thinking back to the police arriving at the door and my friends going with me to the hospital… not being told he had died, but walking into the room where his body was… calling my girls, and others… signing a form so that they could harvest his organs… going home to a house without him…

hard days… but today I got chocolate in the mail and bought myself a bouquet of flowers to make me smile;-)…

one step at a time on the journey…

grief…

05 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, feelings, garden, grief, loss, moments, prepared, sadness, widow

had a conversation with someone who had recently lost a family member… we were comparing notes…

both of us talked about how slowly the person seemed to go downhill and then how fast the final moments were…

although you think you are prepared, you aren’t…

we talked about how the grief overcomes you at anytime… for sure not when you’d expect it, and the only way forward is to succumb to the feelings and walk through them…

for me, when the moments come, if I can figure out why I’m feeling that way, seems to make it easier to let it wash over me and then I am able to move forward…

sometimes though they just come with no explanation…

it’s been over five years and I can still drop to my knees with the pain on occasion…

for whatever reason I am going through a deep period of sadness… maybe because my beloved did so much of the work in the garden… maybe because it is Spring and a time for new beginnings… not sure, but it is certainly tough…

the garden, which is usually my favourite place to be, is not providing the usual peace and renewal…

one step at a time…

moon rising over the trees last night…

sixty…

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, family, flowers, loss, memories, months, orchids, roses, sixty, time, widow

1825… days since my beloved left me… 261 weeks… 60 months… 

hard to believe so much time has gone by… although it also feels like it was just a moment ago…

he was my best friend, lover, staunch supporter, caregiver, sounding board, helper, chauffeur, shopper, masseuse, gardener, and…

as each anniversary of his passing has come and gone I have been through a variety of emotions… profound sadness, loneliness, and many tears…

some years it has been less difficult than others, but it never has a clear path… not more difficult at the beginning and less so as time has gone by… 

the first year my colleagues all wore purple to show their support to mark the day… sweet and supportive…

received flowers from the kids today…beautiful… the orchids are nearly identical to the ones from graduation… my mauve dress and George’s matching turtleneck were designed and made by a friend and I wore a beautiful orchid corsage on my wrist… that was a very long time ago, lol…

and of course the roses… my romantic husband brought me hundreds over the years…

a lovely treat and they brought back some special memories…

focussing…

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by sulis303 in family, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, difficult, focussing, loss, memories, moments, struggling, widow

been thinking a lot of friends and those in my circles who are struggling with various life situations…

this time of year is difficult for so many… nearly everyone has memories of those who might be gone for the first time this year, or they might be thinking of past celebrations with loved ones… there are those who don’t have anyone to spend time with, whether it is because of family being away or estranged or just not having anyone… it can make for difficult moments…

recently someone pointed out the importance of listening, not focussing on what you want to add to a conversation…

trying hard to focus and celebrate the special moments and let the not-so-special ones go… 

today I was treated to rice rolls which I love… a lovely moment… had them for my dinner… 

didn’t put them in the fridge so they wouldn’t be cold when I ate them… yummy…

funk…

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by sulis303 in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized

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beauty, big girl pants, funk, George, health, loss, memories, sad, widow

been thinking of people I know who are struggling with health issues and loss…

brought back so many memories of when George died and the difficult period following…

makes me quiet and rather sad… not really how I like to be…

  
even the beautiful morning sky couldn’t bring me out of this little funk…

as I think of my friends I am also going to focus on the beauty around me…

  

magic…

11 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by sulis303 in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, cancer, CancerCare, daffodil, death, George, loss, magic, pin, relief, widow

been thinking about cancer quite a bit lately…

  
picked these daffodil pins up on Thursday and left them at the office for my colleagues to wear during April… the daffodil is a symbol of strength and courage in the fight against cancer… 

the colleague we recently lost had her birthday in April and I’ve been thinking of her a lot…

also, the many others in my life who have succumbed to the disease… my mom, mother-in-law, family friends… and those who have survived…

it has been nearly four years since my surgery… the cancer is all tied up with George’s death as the diagnosis was just weeks after… 

I am doing very well but the magic number is five years… wonder how I will feel when that last appointment at CancerCare happens… 

I remember how shocked I was at the relief when the doctor called to advise that there was no cancer left following the surgery… I had thought that I wasn’t worried about it at all, lol… wrong…

orchid bloom opening…

 

healthy…

19 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by sulis303 in health, life, nature

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big girl pants, cancer, diabetes, healthy, Life, loss

three years ago today I had surgery to remove a cancerous uterus and repair a large hernia…

 and here I sit, feeling great after a busy day where I walked to and from the grocery store, went plant shopping with my daughter, made supper for my kids, cleaned up after they left and am spending time enjoying the garden, not even tired…

just the other day someone commented on how quickly I had walked from one location to another…

 
so much has changed in just over three years… the devastating loss of my husband… cancer, surgery and slow recovery… diabetes diagnosis with lifestyle changes and forty pound weight loss…

I am one of the lucky ones… free of cancer and healthy…

  
and life goes on…

loss…

12 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by sulis303 in health, life, nature

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beloved, big girl pants, cancer, loss

recently lost a good friend to cancer… she was a very special person and many people are feeling her loss…

  
this morning I sat in the hot tub looking into the garden crying, for her and for me…

always shocking how the loss of one person brings back other losses you’ve experienced in your own life…

been reliving the day that George died… I can remember some of it… but I don’t really want to… not sure I have done anything harder than call each of my girls to tell them their dad was gone…

interesting that I haven’t thought about my cancer… the diagnosis, wait, surgery, recovery and finally results of the pathology… just about losing my beloved…

life goes on and I wear those big girl pants more and more… but I don’t have to like it…

and some days I just need to wallow in that feeling sorry for myself place…

  

  

loss…

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

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40 years of marriage, beloved, big girl pants, death, devastated, loss, one step at a time, stay positive

a friend lost her mom… it was shocking and awful… didn’t matter that she was in her nineties…

when you lose a loved one, you aren’t prepared, even if you think you are…

we talked for quite a while and she mentioned the most difficult part was sharing the information with her children, and then supporting them as they processed it…

me and my girls...

my girls and I this summer… they are such amazing young women…

brought to mind the very difficult phone calls I had to make when George died… one of my daughters lives here and the other lived at the coast…

I had to pull myself together and call them… I remember calling the one here in the city and praying that her husband was home because I knew she was going to dissolve into a million pieces… and thank goodness, he was home and answered the phone… I was able to know that he was beside her to hold her when she heard the news… I don’t even remember how she told our grandsons…

then I had to call my daughter at the coast… I knew that her husband was across the country and she had no one at home for support… I didn’t even have a friend’s number who I could call to go and be with her… we had to make decisions about whether she would come home right away or wait for the storm that was pounding the coast to abate… would she contact her husband who was writing an exam the following morning or wait until he was finished… would he come back to their home and travel with her here, or would he travel directly here from where he was…

the kids here came immediately to the hospital, although while I waited it seemed like it took forever… the daughter from away had to wait until the next day to come, and her husband did come directly here… finally we were all together…

and then we took one step at a time to get everything done that was needed…

speaking with my friend, I realized that I had blocked out making those phone calls…

in less than a month it will be two years since my beloved died… I am working very hard to stay positive and not fall into a funk… when I start to feel sorry for myself I put on those big girl pants and think about all the special times we had over 40 years… I am amazed that after this amount of time I can still feel devastated…

a young friend recently asked me how I was doing and I burst into tears… not that great I guess, lol… some days it feels as though everyone has moved on with their life… and I have too, until the gaping hole opens…

truly I have been blessed, and that helps me take the next step…

loss…

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

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advent calendar, alone, big girl pants, death of parent, dying, loss, missing my beloved, project, remembering, ups and downs

spent a quiet day at home and got some chores taken care of around the house…

spent quite a while trying to find my advent calendar – 2 muffin tins with magnetic covers – which was very frustrating as I had seen it over the summer… did find the reindeer calendar, lol…  will have to actually go through each of the Christmas boxes one night this week…

spent a lovely afternoon working on a project which is coming along very nicely…

thought about friends who have recently lost parents and remembering the loss of our parents… how slowly the process of dying can be, and then how quickly it happens… thinking you are prepared and discovering that you are not at all ready… the guilt of feeling relief that the process is over… the exhaustion…

I have been feeling a bit alone for the last while… missing my beloved more, rather than less, these days…  working hard to remember all the special times with him…

last year at this time we were all focused on our family vacation to Mexico right after Christmas, and I think it helped me keep my mind off Christmas without him… this year I don’t have that distraction, so I am trying to live each moment, whether happy or sad…

finished off my fishy weekend with a lovely dinner of shrimp, left-over garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad…

shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad...

shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad…

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