The Day I Died
My beloved husband Tony died suddenly in 2012. The trauma affected me so much more than anyone knows.
You build yourself back from something so dark in small breaths and in big gulps.
My experience of loss cut me wide open and I am still sewing myself back together. In the beginning, the thread felt like shards of glass.
The good news is that I never was left alone.
The bad news is that it's isolating and frightening even with the most amazing team of family and friends a girl could dream of.
During one post loss counseling session a few years after his death, my therapist told me that the day Tony died, I also died and my children were dealing with that loss as well.
Can you even imagine the room after hearing that? The heaviness. The absolute shock. The smack of truth given in the most sweet, gentle voice known to man?
This sentence has lived in my head all these years and it is today in 2025 that I am realizing what a consummate professional woman she is to have the restraint to wait until I could digest that truth.
More good news; I have never been without profound love in my midst. I could always hold pain and light even in the aftermath of his death. I don’t know how I acquired this skill. I think it started in first grade when I was given a book with what to me was clearly heaven on it-cornflower blue sky, fluffy clouds and bright beams of light pouring through the picture. It opened up something in me that still makes me pause when I see light streaming out of the sky on random drive.
There has been SO much more pain since 2012.
And so much more LOVE. And so much more JOY.
I am on the other side of utter devastation now. This era is a precious sparkle I have longed for. The thread I am sewing myself back together with now is buttery smooth and adorned in glitter.
There was no magic way out. No shortcuts. Only one breath at a time.
If you have had a tough era or are under a weight right now, HOLD ON. Hold the hand of a safe person. Message someone you know will listen.
If you have lived even a little, you know life is profoundly hard, unfair and difficult.
Perhaps you need “Colleen” who hasn’t had a fairy tale life. I will sit with you.