All That Was Left Behind…Is No Longer

It’s impossible to fathom that five years have gone by and yet here we are. We have survived for five years without Brett. The life and children he left behind no longer exist in the sense that they did. His thirteen-year-old son, in his last year of middle school, is now in his second semester

The A Word

In the past 4 years, I’ve sought counsel from a pastor, a psychic, my primary care physician, a tarot card reader, I’ve seen a psychologist, I’ve attempted multiple times to read a book written by a rabbi (recommended so many times I broke down and bought the thing). I went to India and met a

“I’ll Stop Wearing Black When They Invent a Darker Color”~Wednesday Addams

I wish there was a “Miss Manners” book on grieving or at a minimum a grieving “For Dummies”; a checklist, a ‘step by step’, a ‘how to’ or even guidelines, but there aren’t any. There is no plan, no map, nothing to help you chart the course and get through this ‘journey’ you unwillingly embarked

I Cannot Do It All…But Still Try…

I am not sure where 3 years have gone, 37 months have passed and I still grieve. I still have bad days; really bad shitty, knock you on your ass kind of days and good, even great days. The good days outnumber the bad, but winter days seem to be the toughest. The holidays, our

“Embrace the Suck”

The quote in its entirety is, “You embrace the suck. You move the fuck forward. What other choice do we have?” I heard it in a movie, turns out to be a military quote about sucking it up or giving up. I thought it to be quite fitting and very apropos today. Today I am

Journey to Optimal Health

I have always believed and touted that I get all the nutritional support from my food. That although I do eat ‘junk food’, have an occasional alcoholic beverage and love things deep fried, in general I’m healthy. I, for the most part, eat a relatively balanced diet of grains, vegetables, proteins and then the food

Not the Dark House

November 29th, 2013, it was the day after Thanksgiving, I had volunteered to work that day and Brett had the day off. It had been a pretty slow and uneventful day so at 2:00 when the clinic closed I decided to go home. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw Brett and the kids

Thirty-Nine and a Half

Brett’s dying would forever change the way I looked at everything. Life, the future, my children, and not only my birthday but everyone’s birthdays that first year. I remember as his time in the hospital grew longer and I knew he was dying but hoping and pleading he wouldn’t, I told my friend “He won’t

Tennis Team Banquet

A few Sunday evenings ago I went to the awards banquet for the boys tennis team. This was Jay’s second banquet of the year, the first was to commemorate the end of the Nordic Ski season, so one would think that I would be completely ready for this one. Well, at least that is what I

Vasculitis stole my love, my dreams, my hopes…my life.

Had it been there all along undetected? A misdiagnosis from the beginning which allowed all this to happen? As you read What Happened to Brett?, please know that I am not writing this from anyone’s perspective but my own. It is not a medical perspective but rather from the perspective of his wife, who simply happened to