Category: Grief
Posts on grief in its many forms — the acute losses, the slow ones, the ones nobody else notices. What it asks of us, what it takes from us, what it eventually leaves behind. Lived experience, not a roadmap.
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Telling Secrets…Then Taking It a Step Deeper into the Grave
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Crimes to the Third Degree. I’m going to tell you a secret. Well, okay, it’s not really a secret—it’s just something I don’t talk about, and because I don’t generally talk about it, people assume that it’s a secret or something that I’m ashamed of. From the Bookshelf…
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Milestone
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Crimes to the Third Degree. I heard someone say that forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. I’m not sure if what I’m feeling tonight is forgiveness. It feels more like…understanding. So here I sit in the wee hours of the morning, bawling my eyes…
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In Retrospect
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. At the end of the calendar year, people tend to look back on the events of the Earth’s previous revolution. It’s a time not just of looking back but of re-assessment, of what’s happened, and of figuring how to incorporate the lessons of the…
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Divine Timing
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. I’m fast approaching the one-year anniversary of my divorce. In a few more days, I’ll have achieved the year-and-a-day landmark, and maybe I can stop wearing the blackness of grieving not just what happened but what never was. They say that women grieve alone…
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Hauntings
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. Today is Halloween…Samhain. It’s said that the Veil is thinnest now. The Veil between the worlds. Between Life and Death. This year, it’s thinner than I’ve ever known it. I’ve found a lump. An odd little lump that shouldn’t be there. Or rather, it’s…
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Thank You for Treating Me Like Shit (No, Really….)
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Life in the Third Degree. My dead grandfather is in my garden. Again. But where else would he be? No one he loved/loves still lives on the farm under the old oaks where he spent the bulk of his 90 years as an entrepreneur and individualist. He was…
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Defining Moments
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Life in the Third Degree. Snippets of conversations sometimes come back to haunt me. Rarely are they words I’ve spoken myself, so it’s not a matter of regretting something I’ve said or done. Vicki tells me that middle-age spread is a direct result of eating your own words…
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Tangled Webs and a Death of Innocence
How do I maintain my innocence when over half my life has been a lie? And not even my own lie but someone else’s? I knew for years that something was amiss, but when you love someone with all your heart, you give them the benefit of the doubt. You shut down that niggling in…
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“Get Closure—Now, Damn It!”
room with me, most of them backed away, not knowing what to make of my very public breakdown. We were all there for a 2-hour training session on the new Justification and Approval Guide from Part 7 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and yet I was on my knees with my face in my hands.…
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Healing Old Wounds
Healing old wounds of childhood trauma and self-esteem doesn’t come easily, but when it does come, it’s unexpected. Thinking back on my childhood, I might just as easily have been a child suicide. I remember thinking about it when I was nine years old, right after being humiliated in front of several hundred kids at…
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Happiness Will Have to Wait a Few Days
My apologies to my regular readers, especially those of you expecting a New Moon in Scorpio meditation for October. I’m in grieving mode right now and need some time to recuperate. The happiness I’ve wished for will have to wait – there’s a divine timing for everything, as I’ve been shown many times, and right…
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Walking Away from Someone You Love (and Hate and Fear)
I hated him. I loved him, too. But this is probably the first time in my life that I’ve been grateful that Daddy was a tyrant. It’s afforded me the opportunity to see his traits in others and identify others like him. From the Bookshelf Working Through Grief — gentle, practical help for coping with…
