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The Fifth Christmas
My late wife Joyce has been gone for five Christmas seasons. Christmas 2018 found us fighting the effects of a round of platinum based chemo. If you’ve had platinum based chemo in your life, you know what I’m talking about. This picture was taken Christmas Day 2018… She wore masks before they were in fashion.…
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Grace
It has been an unbelievable week. To start, one of my best friend’s wife passed away. I learned that a friend from a long time ago recently died in Europe. Another friend I’ve known for 60+ years had a severe stroke, and my favorite aunt died. Talk about a piling-on! It seems like everywhere I…
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What’s your mountain?
I live in Indiana. It’s flat. Think pancake flat. But I’m climbing a mountain. So are you. As surviving spouses, we all climb the “second mountain” in life. I just finished an interesting book titled The Second Mountain. While the book isn’t written from a grief perspective, it speaks to many of our challenges. As…
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Life Is Best When Lived In Pencil – Part 4
I just got home from church. A wonderful message was presented by the minister today centered on the fact that even if life doesn’t take you where you think it will, you’ll still be OK. He told us that life can still be good even when our plans get changed, our dreams get dashed and…
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Life is Best When Lived in Pencil – Part 3
My last blog talked about self-care and looking out for number 1 (us!). I want to dig into that a little deeper today. To me, the most critical component of self-care is recognizing and embracing our inner truth. My inner truth is a feeling deep in my core. It’s the “ thing” that can keep…
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Life is Best When Lived In Pencil – Part 2
Change, change, change. The only constant seems to be change. In a recent column, I shared that I am considering moving back to the area where I was raised. That’s a huge change for me. That’s getting out the pencil and erasing some plans that had previously been considered to be permanent. It’s good, though,…
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Life Is Best When Lived In Pencil
Life is best when lived in pencil. Life is best when we accept and adapt to ournew realities. Life is best when we embrace the fact that our lives are not over. Aportion and chapter of our lives has ended, however, there is more to go. Life isbest when we realize we can be restored…
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Holiday Greetings
So here we are again. Another Holiday season. This marks the 5th consecutive crazy Christmas for me. Christmas in 2018 had my late wife Joyce just completing her first round of a terrible chemotherapy. By Christmas 2019 she had passed away. We all know how the first Christmas goes. Then came 2020 and that silly…
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Can We Go Home Again?
by Jim Winner. Hello friends. I haven’t written much lately. I’ve been lurking, watching, learning, and observing you, my brothers, on our collective paths. As of this writing, I am three years and three months into my journey. If there were a grief degree, I, like many of you, would hold a Ph.D. For the…
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Be part of the herd
Hello Brothers! I haven’t written much lately. I have, however, been watching the forum, reading many of your posts and cheering you on as you courageously deal with so many issues and challenges of life and death. I’m so impressed by the young men in our group who have instantly become school teachers, IT experts,…
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