WidowSphere: A Circle of Hope

Autumn

Hello, it's a "sort of" fall day in Houston, just the first tiny cool breeze after a brutal summer. Fall is my favorite time of year, or it used to be before my husband's illness and death. His first symptoms occurred in late September 2004. By the end of October he was diagnosed with leukemia and the next October he was gone. So now fall is bittersweet for me.

Life is like a mosaic. Hundreds of tiny pieces fit together to form a pattern, and when one piece disappears, the entire pattern has to be reshaped into a new one . You can't just slap the tiles together and forget about the missing piece. It takes time to reposition, rethink, reorganize. That's what widowhood is, the rearranging of a life into a new meaningful whole.

I think I've done that, that I'm whole again. And then the first hint of autumn pricks my heart and reminds me I'm not quite as finished as I thought.

But I'm working on it. I hope you are, too. See you in seven.