Mr C

I would come up from Seattle.

12 is a tough age even before you throw grief on top of it. At the age of 12, my son had a difficult year of soccer. The new team started shortly after his mother's open heart surgery, an event that left him very traumatized. He was on an all city team, but some of his friends moved up to the higher team and others dropped down to play on a localized team. He didn't connect with the other kids on his team. Also, the travel schedule was quite a burden on all of us. He just didn't have fun that year and wanted to quit. We were too far along by that point in time and near the end of the cycle. I do regret not trying to move him down when life got hard for us and also failing to make the move when the opportunity presented itself again later in the year. Fortunately, he has stuck with soccer and is enjoying it again. He has played the last three years with the neighborhood team where he gets to play with his friends. It has been a good outlet for him this past year and his game has improved. He turns 16 tomorrow and has actually handled the grief better than his older sister (19) and myself. From my experience, widows get way too much parenting advise from family and friends. They seem to forget that we have been parenting for a long time now. Being vulnerable as we are, the comments of others leave us even second-guessing ourselves. Do what you feel is best for your son.

This video has inspired me to run on this Memorial Day to remember the sacrifices that others have made for their country, and in support of the families they left behind.

It is important to go with what you are comfortable with. I think I am a bit rare in being very open and probably overly sharing with my widowed status. The one time that I consciously held back on the status was when I picked up a couple new clients at the end of last year. That was just awkward for me and I never had a good rapport with one of the clients. It was a huge relief for me when I told the other client I was widowed. It is just such a huge part of who I am right now that I almost need people to know.

Sending prayers and Wishing you the best for recovery.

3 for the two of us. Though my son uses the one from his room more as a computer monitor and will take it around the house. The one in my bedroom no longer has cable. Just mostly watch netflix, huluplus, DVDs and now HBO Go on it. DW used to fall asleep to the t.v. as a kid. I got her to drop that habit. Now I'm the one that needs a familiar movie on to fall asleep these days.

The women's heart health podcast in honor of my wife has been launched on iTunes. It has been a long challenging journey that I couldn't have pulled together without all of the great support and feedback on grieving from this young widow community. There were times when the grief was so overwhelming that I wasn't sure I could put forth the effort needed. I learned to be gentle and yield to the grief as it came. I took things one little step at a time and measured accomplishments weekly instead of daily. I am hoping that the awareness from this show will one day save a life and spare their spouse from having to join this club that no one wants to be a part of. I would like to share with you our family's story which I posted on facebook yesterday: Our heart journey began on this day four years ago. It was the middle of the day when Cesily came crawling up the stairs holding her head and chest. Fortunately, our kids were home sick that day and helped call 911. She was having an aortic dissection that ended up requiring an 8-hour emergent open-heart surgery. For the next two years we celebrated May 17th as Cesily?s ?Re-birthday?, for she had survived what is often not survivable. I still look at this day with gratitude for the three precious bonus years that we got with Cesily. Like many women, Cesily had never thought about the risks of heart disease. After her incident she found information from the American Heart Association on how to live a healthier lifestyle. She also discovered how prevalent heart disease was in women and that it could strike at any age. Cesily became an ambassador for AHA?s Go Red for Women initiative and was passionate about spreading awareness to other women to ?put their heart health first.? My gift to my wife, and the community at large, is the It?s Your Heart podcast, where we will be interviewing survivors, health experts and others to share their stories and tips on how to live a healthier lifestyle. I am grateful to Cesily?s mother, Deloria, for joining me on this project as the show?s host and to the countless friends and family members who have given us their support and talents to make this show a reality. Together we get to carry on Cesily?s legacy of spreading heart health awareness to women. Thanks for your support, Jerald Check out the show on iTunes at: http://apple.co/1S2DHEX See our website at http://itsyourheart.org

Jen, It is going to take time. I wish I could tell you how much time. What I believe is that you can't rush it. Here is a meme from Michelle Steinke, the One Fit Widow, that resonates with me because there have been days where I just needed to be grief stricken.

Tony Award winner Idina Menzel (Wicked, Rent, "Frozen," "Glee") will launch the national tour of If/Then, reprising her critically acclaimed, Tony-nominated performance in seven select cities, producers announced May 7. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/starting-over-again-idina-menzel-will-launch-the-national-tour-of-if-then-348565 I got the opportunity to see Idina perform this role on Broadway and can't wait to see her perform in Seattle this November. Here is a link to the National Tour: http://ifthenthemusical.com/tour Idina Menzel singing Always Starting Over:

I came up to bed tonight and everything was piled up on her side of the bed so that it looked almost like it would if she were under the covers. I slowly walked up to the bed, dreaming, wishing, ?If only.? My thoughts raced with the fantasy of her being under the cover. I peered and hesitated a bit with caution, knowing that I would be startled and scared if the covers did suddenly move. But why couldn?t it all have just been a bad dream that I had finally woken up from? While getting ready for bed, I continued to keep an eye on the lump. Carefully, I got in on my side and started to get under the covers. I tried to put my arm over the lump in the bed, but couldn?t. I reached my arm up a few times more and was still unwilling to extend it all the way over. I didn?t want to admit the truth. Yet how can there be any hope left? Maybe it is because this reality has been so absurd, whereas, the fantasy feels so real because she is what I remember so deeply. I plead, "Just one time, let her be there." So here I am, typing this crazy message, looking at the lump next to me and dreaming: If only......

((((Leslie)))) Sorry that you are hurting. Like others, I have the tendency to jump into the middle of grief and even knowingly activate triggers. Lately, I have been listening to my "Cesily" playlist on my iPhone when grocery shopping. There are times, such as when walking the dog, that those songs bring peace and comfort. But at the grocery store, those special songs just enhance my loneliness and sadness.

I love reading the various ways that all of you have been able to honor your spouse?s memory. Cesily was a wonderfully kind and sharing woman who touched many people in her short time here. One of her accomplishments, as a parent educator, was to start a program to teach parenting skills to young moms at a couple women?s shelters. It was good to see the college she worked at create a scholarship for the program in her name. From day one, I wanted to do something that would continue to share my wife with this world. When I was invited to give the survivor?s speech at the American Heart Association?s Go Red for Women luncheon in Seattle--less than five weeks out--I realized the opportunity to carry on Cesily's legacy of advocating for women?s heart health awareness. The speech itself was outside of my comfort zone. However, the overall process was cathartic and made me want to do more. In the year since, I have been working towards producing a podcast on women?s heart health. It has taken a lot of baby steps and being gentle with myself to get here. Five episodes have been recorded so far and the show will be ready to launch in a couple weeks.

The unreal feeling that I get often is that she can't be gone. This weekend, the other unreal feeling of our life together being made up came over me suddenly. I was driving past our high school and I just had to pull in to see proof that we existed as a couple. When they renovated the school several years ago, they had a fundraising campaign where you could have your name put on a brick by the flagpole. Sure enough, I was able to find the one with both of our names on it. Those wonderful memories of time together in that building and thereafter just may be real.

Joining this thread since I already have my pajamas on. Although, maybe I should head over to the confession thread to admit that I never changed out of my pajamas today. Frozen pizza is in the oven for dinner. A beer and watching the end of the hockey game should round out the night.

((((injo)))) I am sorry for the loss of your cat and all that he means to you.

It?s a sunny day and the new neighbors across the street are out working in their yard. This seems like a good time to meet them, so you walk over and introduce yourself. They respond with their names and say that you have met and talked before. There was one time that you and DW took care of their cat when they went out of town. Turns out they have lived there for a couple years.

Hachi, It is wonderful that you have rediscovered yourself and are set to begin grand adventures. I love stories like that. 8)

Fuck You soccer league for making mother's occupation a required field.

Jen, Sending you ((((HUGS))))

Your sweet responses have touched me so deeply. :'( I didn't get to do all that I wanted for her in life. Time was cut short. It is important to me to find ways to continue to act as her husband. I know she felt loved and she loved me so well. And still I strive to prove myself worthy of her. That is why the other day was so enjoyable and I felt so close to her.

Today was a day that was very much about my wife. I started by editing a promotional video for the women?s heart health awareness podcast that is to be launched later this month. The podcast is in honor of my wife and is an opportunity to carry on her legacy. There is a bit of a tribute to her in the video as well. It was fun to pick pictures of her to put on top of the words that had been spoken. In the afternoon, I had an appointment for a physical with her former doctor. This was actually my first visit as a patient of his. We talked a lot about my wife and laughed about how she kept trying to convince him to sign off on letting her go back to work full time after her open-heart surgery. She refused to quit. After the appointment I went down a couple floors and was able to visit with her surgeon. I wanted to tell him about the podcast. It was interesting to see the sorrow in his eyes a little over a year later. He talked about how upbeat she was in spite of such painful and scary health conditions. These visits reminded me just how lucky I am to have her as my wife. She was such a lovely and friendly woman who left a lasting positive imprint on everyone she met. I got the urge to walk along the lake this evening to further connect with her. I put on my headphones and played the playlist I created of songs to think of her. It was a nice evening and a lovely walk. As I listened to ?I Don?t Want to Miss a Thing? by Aerosmith I thought about different times that I just took in the moment of being with her and I could just feel her in my arms. Then came Luther Vandross? ?Here and Now.? This was a song that was sung at our wedding. There were a couple hundred people in attendance that day--mostly our parents? friends--and we were lost in our own little world. At the end of the walk, I caught myself thinking that I am more in love with my wife than ever.

Nathan Lane won a Tony in 2001 for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his role as Max Bialystock in The Producers. Below is a comedic clip of Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and the cast of The Producers. This is from their performance at the Tony Awards in 2001 and includes "sex starved widows." The Producers won the Tony for Best Musical that year.

Jen, you are a great writer and have shared your soul so beautifully with us once again. You have come a long way in this journey. And Wow! You have some great adventures planned in the coming months. You have made me a believer? in You! (((Hugs)))

In a mood to mix things up a bit. May return with a tragedy tomorrow ?? [move] :-* [glow=red,2,300]COMEDY TONIGHT[/glow] :-* [/move] Nathan Lane in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to A Forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuxzTarpusI

At 13 months out it still feels unreal and it is hard to wrap my brain around it. I have even found myself pausing while reading this forum and thinking, "WTF, why am I reading widow stuff..... Oh yeah, my wife is gone."