The original title of this post was going to be awakening. But the real thing I felt compelled to write about was acceptance. It was an awakening of sorts that led me to the point of acceptance, so in some respects, this post is still about that concept. When I write about awakening, I am not talking about either the literal sense or the religious/spiritual sense. Well, not exactly, anyway. My awakening was the rationalization that Suzanne was truly gone. It didn’t actually take very long after she died. In fact, I woke up, bolt upright, in the middle of...
If you have read any of my previous posts, you will by now know that my favorite band is a Scottish rock group from the 80s called Big Country. In 1984, they released their second album, Steeltown. That album debuted at number 1 in the UK. There is a particular song on that album that resonates deeply with me at the moment. That song is called Tall Ships Go and the first verse (and chorus) lyrics are: I dreamed I heard that you were dead. I dreamed I searched an empty bed.For a sign of you…And the sea called hard...
That word. “Anxiety.” It used to drive me nuts when Suzanne, or my daughters, would mention they had it. The reason was: I didn’t get it—literally and figuratively. Anxiety always seemed to provide a convenient excuse to not get involved or do something. It was never a problem when we had fun things to do… But something serious? That was another story. One or all of them was always getting anxious when something serious was taking place… In all my life (I’m inching closer to 52 years old now), I had never experienced anxiety. In fact, I never really felt...
This week has become another one of those, “I was going to write something else.” weeks. The rapidly changing global situation has compelled me to write these thoughts instead of what I had planned… On July 4, 2007, I silently slipped away and played golf at around 7:00 AM. I wanted to hit something. At the time, I thought it was best to hit a ball… not anything or anyone else. That day, I was staying at my parents house in California while Suzanne and our girls were back home in England (and no, they weren’t celebrating Independence Day, my...
When I became a widower, I was hopelessly lost. My senses went into overdrive and my feelings were so intense and alien to me, I was in a complete state pf panic and a total fog. It felt like I was in a freefall. It was as if the rug that I had been walking on all of my life had suddenly and dramatically been pulled out from beneath my feet and there was no floor underneath me. The sensation of falling into an abyss had never been more acute. The saving grace were the friends and family that showed...
What is an unalome? It’s a symbol. There are many styles of unalome, but this is a post about the meaning. But one particular unalome has an even more profound meaning for me than the “definition” of the unalome. The unalome symbol represents the path to enlightenment in the Buddhist culture. The dots at the start of the symbol represent when we are conceived and then born. Essentially, this is the moment we become something from nothing. The spirals are meant to symbolize the twists and turns in life, and the straight line the moment one reaches enlightenment, or “peace and...
I had prepared a different post to publish today (not this one), but I changed my mind. Instead, I felt compelled to write about how it feels to arrive at the 18-month mark since Suzanne died. On my personal Facebook page, the memory of what I wrote 1-year ago came up and I posted it—it was from when I was “6-months out.” In that post at 6-months, I said this: Six months. Six months since I last kissed you and you knew I was there. Six months since I had my hand on your heart as it beat for the...
Among the many things I have been told since Suzanne died was that I should not try to distract myself from the grief. No matter what the form, a distraction (from what I can gather) is anything I do that stops me from thinking about Suzanne’s death and my love for her while I am in the process of thinking about it (and feeling sad, upset, angry, etc.). What I find is that it’s nearly impossible not to get distracted by something. Children, work, TV, walking, doing anything… Pretty much whatever one may do after our person dies will be...
In the wake of Suzanne dying, I struggled to find true peace. How did others do it, I wondered? Some turn to “god”, religion, etc. Others turn to self-medicating (drugs, alcohol, etc.). Some find it in more unconventional ways. I finally fell into the last category. When Suzanne died, my whole world shattered. The girls suffered. Her parents suffered. I suffered. How would I ever find any peace, tranquility or serenity in my life again? Life is strange when someone you truly love dies. I can only talk about my own experience, but it definitely seemed difficult to find anything...
In most other languages, the onomatopoeia that we use to describe these birds does not exist. We call them hummingbirds because, like flip flops and ping pong, it describes the noise made rather than the name of the thing itself. The word most other languages use instead is “Colibri”. This is significant for two reasons. One, I find the word more elegant than hummingbird. And two, I have used this word as the name of my own business (spelled Kohlibri Coaching). Why? When Suzanne died, we sat as a family in mourning. We talked about her spirit. Her resilience. Her...
