This is the first in a series of posts I'll write in the Blogging from A to Z in April challenge. My theme will be Aging from a Recent Widow's Perspective. I had a high falutin' word starting with A to present to you today, but my experience of the last twenty-four hours gave the …
Category: Sioux Falls
Blogging from A to Z in April
Last year I stumbled on a delightful Australian blogger who was participating in the A to Z April blogging challenge. The challenge involves blogging every day during April, except Sunday, on a letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter A on April 1. Makes sense right? Thirty days hath September, April.... Skip Sundays and …
Once a nurse, always a nurse…
Thank you, Joost van Beek and team at Nurse Recruiter, for selecting my blog to be among their top nurse blogs for 2019. This is their second year for examining nursing blogs, and I've made their cut this year for a second time. I appreciate their dedication to this project! This organization groups their top …
Grief at Sixteen Months: Traumatic Flashback
“I heard what happened out there,” the male nurse said, standing on my right side as I lay on a bed in the Emergency Room last week. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Sniffling and dabbing my tears, I said, “No, not really. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve been …
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Grace Notes #16: Grief at Eleven Months
Big news! I finished a first draft of the book I'm writing about our cancer experience. In March, when I was in Arizona, I started compiling blog posts written during that time which will serve as the frame of the story. Then I added emails that I'd written to family and friends. Way last November …
Thank you, WordPress Editors and WordPress Friends!
Imagine my surprise last week when my email box showed dozens, then hundreds of notices from WordPress announcing an uptick of activity on my last blog post on my scare with breast cancer. I'm grateful to Cheri Lucas at WordPress for featuring that post under Discover, "a daily selection of the best content published on …
Continue reading Thank you, WordPress Editors and WordPress Friends!
Grace Notes #4: Skating
When Marv had his first cancer, prostate, in 1999, I fell off the rails. As I was telling that story to a mutually grieving friend last week, I thought back to what a therapist told me at the time: "Sounds like you're bouncing along the bottom." Here’s the situation as I described it in Caring …
Grace Notes #3: Numb
During the prelude yesterday morning in church, when, as is custom there, most people were chatting across pews or visiting in the aisles, I suddenly wanted to dart up to the front, cocoon myself in a cozy blanket, lie under the baby grand, and absorb the vibrations while singing along in my heart: Why should …
Grace Notes #1: Afterward – Trusting God
A Chicago friend sent a photo of this cover from Fourth Presbyterian’s bulletin: I’m in Nouwen’s “trusting” stage. Our Celebration of Life Service for Marv is Saturday at 11am at Westminster Presbyterian. It’s been just twelve days since he passed away. Many family members and friends are coming to town, plus new friends and church …
God’s Grace #21: Transition
My husband, Marv, took his last breath around four yesterday morning, Wednesday, July 25, 2018. Even though heavily medicated he seemed to know that he had to get up at his usual time and go somewhere. Spooned behind him on our king-sized bed, my left arm tucked around his side, I suddenly felt the absence …
Write Along with Me 