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JD's Midlife Tools For Living Practices, LLC
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And slowly a day or two and then three would go by and when I would think of her I’d smile more than I’d cry. With each passing day having lost her has grown a little easier to bear. Those empty spaces she once occupied aren’t as sharply painful to see. Changes in routines have started settling into place.
And we learn to accept what once seemed something beyond our capacity to go on with out.
Part of me hates this adjustment that we make in accommodating a loss into our lives. On one hand it seems so cruel that life just keeps moving forward and that my broken heart will mend. I don’t want to loss to have to be. And on the other hand, it is so very important for me not to cling to that which I can’t have and can’t control and allow life to be what it is.
After all everything is as it is…isn’t it!
And so with each new day it is a little bit easier for me to cherish the joy that Dunkin brought into my life with a smile rather than to wash it away with a tear! For this I am most grateful. It takes time for the grief process to unfold. It just does.
What do you notice about the process of grief in your life?
Do Contact Me together in Grief Therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
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I have enjoyed writing blog posts and miss the energy it brings to me to do so. It’s like a puzzle. A topic comes to me and my mind goes to work putting the pieces together until it is complete. There is a sense of satisfaction from the finished work with all the parts fitting together nicely. Posting it on my website is the crowning moment for me.
I’ve given myself some badly needed down time this holiday weekend to sit and read and not do a whole bunch. I’ve needed this time to relax and unwind. Creativity and having a relaxed body, mind and spirit are keenly connected for me.
Inspiration can’t be forced. Like the pieces of a puzzle it all has to easily fit together to work well.
What I’ve really needed is to let go and relax and rejuvenate for some creative energy to flow back into me. Perhaps I’ve put my finger on where I left my inspiration after all: back behind all the duties and chores and “to do’s” that have bogged me down and tightened me up.
I do keep learning and relearning exactly what it is that I need. I just wonder where this life’s journey will take me next!
What do you really need to give yourself permission to do to take good care of you?
I’ve noticed at different moments in my life a wonderful sense of being at home. It is a warm familiar comforting feeling sense that overcomes me during which I find myself instantly relaxed mind, body and spirit. When I visit the communities I’ve lived in as an adult I have this sense. Being next to my sister brings it too. When I am at home with my wonderful cats and husband it is home to me. When I am with my parents and in laws I feel at home. I have a dear group of girlfriends I’ve known for over 20 years and when we are together I feel very much at home. My old college roomy who is like another sister brings this feeling when we visit one another too. These are moments I savor when the sensation over comes me.
Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to be with some relatives from my maternal grandfather’s side for a reunion lunch and I felt at one moment very much at home in the midst of people who I’ve known all of my life. It was surprising to experience this wonderful feeling sitting with them and very comforting as well. I don’t see them very often at all anymore but certainly did as a child. I had the fortune of growing up in a smaller community where people stayed so I was afforded the opportunity to have extended family around me often. I am very grateful to have grown up with this way too. There is a richness to my childhood as a result that so many of us today do not get to experience.
I decided at that lunch that I need to take more opportunity to connect with these wonderful relatives as many are aging and won’t be here to enjoy all that much longer. There truly is no place like that feeling of being at home.
What opportunities in your life allow you to feel at home? How can you cultivate more opportunities to experience this phenomenon?
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It is a tender time of year for me. I notice my thoughts are full of the events surrounding my dad’s death and funeral and of memories of him at various times during my life. I miss him of course. And my eyes more easily well up with tears.
I don’t feel the depth of my grief of losing him as often as I did in the past. Dunkin’s death this summer gave me an opportunity to think of and feel my grief about losing my dad as well…new loss is a reminder of old losses. But the sadness in my heart it seems has lightened some.
This anniversary time is an opportunity to release more of that deeper pain that rests inside that wounded heart of mine. I am once again reminded of how exhausting grieving is and just how breath stopping the throbs of pain can be. It’s all part of the process it just is.
We certainly don’t forget those we’ve lost. With time, we do figure out how to live a life without them in it. Initially it doesn’t seem possible this could ever happen and we certainly don’t want for it to happen either. But we do somehow go on as hard as that is to reconcile initially.
There are more memories and tears to come this week. And, I am allowing myself the space I need to let them come too. This fourth anniversary brings these gifts: the opportunity to release more of my grief and the recognition my heart has been healing.
What do you do to honor your loved one and heal your grieving heart when you face a loss anniversary?
Do Contact Me together in Grief Therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
We had to say a very sad goodbye to our little Dunkin kitty on July 10th and our house has not been the same. There are so many empty spaces that furry little one once filled. I see her in my mind’s eye lying in her spots on our bed, in her favorite chair and on the heat duct in the bedroom where she once slept. She’s with me now only in my memory in the morning and evening while I’m in the bathroom. She would burst into the bathroom announcing her arrival and demand some attention as only Dunkin could do. I miss her very much.
Dunkin was a kitty so full of life and so in the moment; so joyful and graceful as she danced around the house. It was very painful to see her decline so very quickly in just one week’s time. Despite multiple trips to the vet and my attentive nursing care at home it just was her time to leave us.
We learned when Dunkin was 3 that she had one smaller than normal kidney and the other miss shaped. Her favorite vet let us know that cats with kidney problems generally don’t live a long life. I promptly dismissed that reality until I recalled what he told us two weeks after she died.
I suspect she took the vets words to heart for she lived each day with great gusto during her 12 ½ years with us. I only hope the care she received from us allowed her a longer than anticipated life.
There is an 8 pound black furry hole in my heart and many empty spaces that only my memory can now fill. Dunkin brought us smiles and her absence has brought many many tears.
Dearest little Dunkin pumpkin we sure love and miss you!
I miss you Dad and really can’t believe this is the fourth Father’s Day without you here. It seems like only yesterday you were home with Mom tending your strawberries and tomatoes and working hard as you always would do.
Time keeps speeding along and life does keep on going. There is however an empty space that only you can fill with the sound of your laughter and warmth of your hug. It’s just not the same without you.
I treasure my memories of life with you in it. There is comfort when I look back even through my tears. I appreciate all you did for your family and the stability you provided for us. I could count on you. I knew you were there for me.
I am very grateful to have been given you as my Dad!
I love you-
Jude
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My spring has been a bit overwhelming. I’ve been getting rid of weeds that over took my flower beds after a summer and fall of neglect due to my illness last year and also tending to cats with medical needs. My energy went in those directions. I am finally catching up and catching my breath. And thankfully my cats are well at the moment too.
I am not as young as I used to be and it’s not easy facing that reality. My cats aren’t either and that’s hard to face too.
Once upon a time crawling around on my hands and knees pulling weeds for hours was easily added into a day of other chores. Now it takes longer and more out of me and I’m less apt to do a bunch of other things on top of doing yard work. I have to pace myself and be realistic with what I can accomplish in a given day.
Wisdom comes with age and so does more sore muscles!
I finally got my hummingbird feeders up last weekend and was delighted when after only a couple hours I noticed that one was visited. These little birds bring me such joy as they buzz around my yard. I am grateful they’ve forgiven me for neglecting them for the last month and have returned to bring me a smile.
I do hope you will also forgive me for letting my blog sit idle for so many weeks. I appreciate your visits to my site and hope you find the resources useful enough to return again and again to see just what else you might find.
What changes are you noticing in your energy as you are getting older?
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Sears is where I visited with Santa when I was young and where we purchased our last refrigerator only a year ago. I would spend hours and hours as a child searching through their catalog for things I wanted for Christmas.
Penny’s is where sheets and towels came from in my household growing up. I registered there when we were married. I spent lots of time in their catalogues growing up and have bought many gifts and articles of clothing for myself over the years there too.
These icons are no longer to be a part of the community where I live. Sears left all ready and JC Penny’s will be gone this summer. Who will I depend on now? Where will I find what I once knew was available at these stores? How can there not be Sears and JC Penny’s just down the street?
I am sad to say goodbye to a part of my childhood and adult life with the closing of these two stores. It’s like the loss of an era. What will be next?
The world is ever changing.
At times I feel out of sync with all the change going on around me and the reality of my age hits me over the head. I really have been around awhile. There has been enormous change to adapt to over the course of my life time.
Change I can certainly count on.
It’s interesting isn’t it how different change events stir up reminders of time passing, loss and aging and challenge us to grow!
What change is a reminder that you really are getting older and challenges you to grow?
It has been a very long winter for me full of gray days both inside and out. My creative energy took a leave of absence the last month. Historically March is a hard month for me to endure. This one was especially long and as March does it teased me with hopes of spring soon dashed by falling temperatures.
Fortunately we’ve said farewell to another winter! I am welcoming spring and looking to the renewal it brings.
I spent a little time in a flower bed out front this afternoon clearing out winter foliage debris that collects and waits for me to gather it up and give it a new home. It felt awfully good to be on my hands and knees once again with fingers in the dirt.
My crocuses are blooming and their blossoms bring color as well as hope of more color to come. There are green shoots popping up in my flower beds promising renewed growth. Spring is finally here!
I am very very grateful the earth is warming up around me. The birds are happily singing and so am I!
What does spring bring to you?
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Sometimes self care involves tackling a chore or project so I see and feel the accomplishment of end result. Sometimes it involves down time and extra sleep and not doing much at all.
Sometimes self care involves looking my habits either thinking or doing and making changes to better my life. Sometimes it involves accepting things just as they are including me.
Sometimes self care involves reaching out and connecting with loved ones and friends. Sometimes it involves quiet alone time to sit and just be or to do something I enjoy like reading or knitting or watching a movie that takes me to another place or time.
Sometimes self care involves getting exercise and sometimes it involves getting rest. Sometimes self care involves eating right and sometimes it involves eating chocolate and ice cream.
Self care is nourishment for our spirit.
Taking good care of me isn’t about being selfish it’s about having compassion and knowing that life will be richer when I am filled up once again. It involves pausing to really consider what it is that I need and courageously giving myself the permission to do it.
What do you need right now to take good care of you?
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Today I decided to have a leisurely day. I’ve read a good book, played with my cats, walked in the sunshine and will sit and knit soon watching an old movie I think.
Self care comes to those who give it to themselves!
Having a leisurely day is a way that we can take good care and recharge our batteries too. The never ending “to do” list can wait.
What does a day of leisure bring to you?
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Today I choose gratitude.
I am grateful for the beautiful blue sky and the sun that warmed the air this weekend. I took a walk in the woods at a park nearby and was transformed to what felt like another world a long way away. I needed that.
I’m grateful for the snow drop flower that has budded in my front yard. That makes two different flowers having announced their presence in anticipation of spring. It brought me hope.
I am grateful for three sweet kitties that give me warmth and companionship and bring smiles to my face with their cuteness and the silly things that they do.
I am grateful for my husband’s constant support and love and for all the things he does for us. It is hard to imagine my life without him in it.
I am grateful for the roof over my head and the food I have to eat and the jobs we have that allow us to live a comfortable life.
Life teaches us everyday. The bad news is that we never finish growing. The good news is that we never stop learning.
I am grateful for all that life is teaching me and for all I have learned even from the rocky hard times because they definitely help me grow.
What do you choose to be grateful for today?
