Understanding the deep fatigue that comes with losing a spouse
When I lost my husband unexpectedly, I felt like I was suddenly swimming upstream in a river of responsibilities I wasn’t prepared to face alone.
I wasn’t just grieving.
I was suddenly a single mother.
The sole decision maker.
The sole provider.
And the weight of that responsibility felt almost unbearable at times.
The exhaustion that came with grieving while trying to navigate life alone was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Grief exhaustion is real.
And it’s not just “feeling tired.”
It’s a deep, bone-weary fatigue that affects you emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. It leaves you feeling foggy, drained, overwhelmed, and often unable to focus on even simple tasks.
Some days, just getting through the basics feels exhausting.
And when you’re grieving the loss of a spouse, there are so many layers contributing to that exhaustion.
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Keeping your focus on Christ in the middle of difficult circumstances
One of the hardest parts about walking through grief is learning where to place your focus.
When difficult circumstances hit, it’s so easy to become consumed by them. The fear. The uncertainty. The overwhelm. The constant feeling like you can’t quite catch your breath.
And if I’m honest, this is something I still struggle with.
It’s easy for me to get caught up in everything happening around me and lose sight of Christ in the middle of it. Sometimes I focus so much on the fire itself that I forget what God may be doing through it.
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Letting Go of the Need to Explain Your Choices to Others
I’ve always had a tendency to overexplain things.
Not because anyone necessarily asked, but because I felt like I needed to justify what I was doing. As if my decisions needed to make sense to everyone around me in order to be valid.
After Jon passed, that feeling got even stronger.
I found myself explaining things that, when I look back now, really didn’t need an explanation at all.
I explained why I was able to stay home with my kids.
I explained how I could afford to add an addition onto our house.
I explained why I stopped wearing my wedding ring after nine months.
I explained why I chose to keep homeschooling instead of putting my kids in school.
I explained why I moved from Maine to New Hampshire.
And later…
I explained when I started dating.
I explained when I got remarried.
No matter what I did, it seemed like there were opinions.
Some people thought I was moving forward too quickly.
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Why choosing safer cleaning products matters more than ever for your family’s health
There’s something about spring that makes us want to throw open the windows and freshen everything up after a long winter.
The air feels lighter.
The trees begin to bud.
Flowers start blooming.
The world outside suddenly feels alive again.
And naturally, we want our homes to feel fresh and beautiful too.
For many of us, spring cleaning is part of that rhythm. We scrub the floors, wash the windows, deep clean the bathrooms, and reset our homes after months of being closed up for winter.
But what most people don’t realize is this:
Many conventional cleaning products are actually adding toxins into the very spaces we’re trying to make “clean.”
And over time, those chemicals can affect our health more than we think.
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Why widows need to hear their loved one’s name, and how it brings comfort, not pain
Right after Jon passed, people talked about him often.
They asked how I was doing.
They shared stories.
They brought up memories, things I hadn’t thought about, moments I hadn’t seen.
And I loved it.
I needed it.
I needed to hear his name.
I needed to know he mattered to other people too.
I needed to be reminded that he wasn’t just my loss, that he had impacted so many lives.
Talking about Jon helped me process what had happened. It kept his memory close, not just for me, but for my kids too.
But then, something shifted.
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