About me...

Because this journey is intensely personal, there will be times when my posts will be about more than just rebuilding the physical aspects of my life. They may be random and sometimes I think they may not even make sense to some. But whatever I post here will be as honest as I can make it, no punches pulled, telling it like it it. I hope that I can share some insight with others who might be going through a similar transitory period in their own lives. With luck and perseverence I know I will eventually successful in my new life. I have very high hopes for all of this but then I had those when Dave was alive, too. I am naturally a pretty optomistic person, I think.

Starting this week off with a bang (at least that is my plan).  Since I have been offline for a bit, with the moving and all and so I will try to play catch up on this post. Then we can press forward with the real intention of this blog.

For the last month, I have been in deep transition. I have gone from living and working on a 30 acre organic farm to living with my parents, having the majority of my worldly goods in storage and trying to keep from having as nervous breakdown. On all fronts, I am still here.  Battered, bruised and beaten on some counts but trying so very hard to start the healing process in all of this.

For anyone who hasn't read any of my other posts, blogs, etc. and so does not know what I am talking about, here is a thumbnail sketch. I lost my best friend, husband of 16 years and soulmate to kidney cancer in March of this year. I am 57 years old and he was only 50. Dave was diagnosed with renal cancer in January of 2005, went into remission for the next 3 years. From that crisp autumn day in 2008, when we realized something was not quite right again, our life was changed forever.  Mine will never be the same. But I am determined to make my life a testament to the power of the love and committment that we shared and so I am using this blog as part of my platform.

For anyone who hasn't experienced grief at this level my only advice to you is that if you find yourself in this dark place that you just understand that there is no timetable for how you will feel, no blueprint for what you will feel. There is no right thing to say to me but plenty of wrong things.  Most of the wrong things are said by people who have nothing but kindness and good intentions with their sympathies and advice, but until you walk a mile in my shoes, as they say....

And sometimes, the right thing to say is to say nothing, just to hold out a hand or put an arm around me.  Death is a part of life and so it comes to us all. When it comes, why it comes, how it comes is different for everyone and no one can truly understand another's pain or reaction. That is what makes this kind of thing so hard to deal with, I think.  We can't remove ourselves from the world, when that is exactly what some of us need to do and so we press ahead never fully healing or understanding what we are feeling.  Pretty much what I am saying is that all of this sucks and I am stuck with it. I am trying to deal.

So, now that that is out of the way, let me get on with it.  As stated in the blog, I am chronicling my experience. I have lost everything that I held dearest and so I am basically a blank canvas in the life department right now.  I was a blissfully married woman who got to spend nearly every hour of every day with the most amazing man I have ever had the pleasure and privilege to have known.  Now I am a widow and I am alone. I made my living as an organic grower (for the last 10 years). I lost access to the farm when Dave died (it was the "family" farm...some family) and now have no job, no income, no savings (his medical bills took almost everything we had saved).

Rebuilding my life from scratch at this stage is not going to be easy but I think I am up to the task. If not, then I guess my future involves shopping carts and a "Welcome to Walmart" badge.  That is strong motivation to succeed, trust me.