loss
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Seven Birthdays Later
Today would have been Eric’s 53rd birthday. My birthday is July 4. His was July 31. For more than two decades, one followed the other until our birthdays seemed to melt together into this thing we simply thought of as July. One birthday always carried the other with it. This is his seventh birthday since… Continue reading
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When Healing Asks You to Begin Again
The Last Thing on My List For months, moving after loss has sat on my horizon like the last mountain I knew I’d eventually have to climb. After Greg died last October, I made a mental list of everything I needed to do just to get by. There were urgent things, and there were hard… Continue reading
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The Hole That Was You
Originally Written: November 24, 2025 Journal Entry I hate that you gave up on life. It hurts so badly, all the time. There are these tiny moments — little flickers — where I forget that you’re really gone. Gone gone. This journal entry has moved. I originally published The Hole That Was You during an… Continue reading
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The Part That Stayed
Journal Entry This journal entry has moved. I originally published The Part That Stayed while I was trying to understand a complicated kind of grief—one that carried anger, love, dependency, memory, and the weight of losing more than one person seemed capable of taking with them. Some writing belongs to the moment in which it… Continue reading
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Layered Grief: When One Loss Reopens Another
Layered grief is what happens when one loss sits on top of another—when old wounds are reopened by new pain, and the lines between them blur. It’s not just mourning one person. It’s mourning the parts of yourself that each loss took away. Until this past week, I wasn’t familiar with the term. While some… Continue reading
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Liminal Space
Journal Entry — Nov 3rd, 2025 Our souls connected in a time and place when I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted or where I was headed. I only knew that I couldn’t continue on the path I was on. Then Greg came into my life and showed me something different—something that felt… Continue reading
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Better or just Different?–As Time Passes
While visiting the picturesque island of Sanibel, I wandered into a small toy store. What started as a casual shopping trip became a profound and unforgettable encounter. Behind the register stood a small woman whose warmth and empathy touched me deeply. As we spoke, I shared my story of trauma and loss, tears streaming down… Continue reading
About The Blue Widow Chronicles and Me
The Blue Widow Chronicles began after my husband, Eric, died suddenly in 2020. I became a widow overnight, and the writing became the place I went to make sense of a life that no longer made sense.
What began as writing through grief has grown with me.
Over the years, I’ve written my way through widowhood, PTSD and trauma, solo travel, love after loss, losing Greg to suicide, starting over, complicated relationships, and the ongoing work of figuring out who I am when the life I once knew no longer exists.
This isn’t a blog about having grief figured out. I write from wherever I actually am—sometimes healing, sometimes questioning, sometimes rebuilding, and sometimes admitting I have no idea what comes next.
Odin and Freija frequently find their way into these pages too, along with the people, places, memories, and ordinary moments that remind me life continues even when it looks nothing like the one I expected.
What You’ll Find Here
The Chronicles are personal essays about grief, trauma, identity, love, relationships, travel, rebuilding, and life after loss. Some were written from inside the experience. Others look back years later with a perspective I couldn’t have had when everything was happening.
There are more than five years of stories here. You don’t need to read them in order. Start wherever something speaks to you.
Beyond the Pages
Some stories can be told publicly. Others need a smaller room.
Beyond the Pages is the more intimate side of The Blue Widow Chronicles on Patreon—a growing private library of previously unpublished journal entries, deeper reflections on the Chronicles, member-only writing, and guided writing resources.
Membership is $5/month and includes access to the complete growing library.
Come further in —Beyond the Pages