Posted on

I Received a Book Excellence Award!

I am incredibly excited to announce that I have been recognized as a Book Excellence Award Finalist for my book, Suddenly: A Widow’s Story of Unexpected Loss and Healing in the Grief Category.

Out of thousands of books that were entered into the Book Excellence Awards competition, my book was selected for its high quality writing, design and overall market appeal.

To view my complete award listing, you can visit: Book Excellence Awards

The book was released in 2024 and is about losing my husband Patrick and finding a way to move forward.

The book is perfect for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, especially those who have lost a spouse or life partner.

You can get a copy for yourself at Buy Book.

Posted on

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Who Has Suffered A Loss?

gray ceramic mug near black and silver camera and open book

I met with a small publisher today. I’ve been wanting to compile my blogs into a book. I definitely have enough material. I just need to decide if I want to spend the time and money to get it done.

Actually, it just occurred to me that if I was led to this publisher. I first met Everett O’Keefe when he sent me a friend request after Patrick died. He went to high school with Pat and has fond memories of him. I’ve never met him in person and I hadn’t spoken to him before today.

A few months after Patrick died I joined a group for widows and I met Leicia Riding. Later I would find out that her husband, John, was also a friend of Everett’s and they wrote their first book together. They were in business together up until the time of John’s death in 2014.

And finally, in 2020 my mom remarried. My new stepfather is Donald Tacchino and he was an English teacher. While visiting him recently, he showed me a book he had received from a former student. The book was The Power of the Published and it was written by, you guessed it, Everett O’Keefe! He let me borrow the book and I scheduled a book consultation as soon as I finished it.

My inspiration

Before Patrick died I read a book called Radical Survivor by Nancy Saltzman. Nancy tragically lost her husband and two sons in a plane crash. I can’t say I enjoyed her story, how can you enjoy someone experiencing that kind of loss? But, it happened. She woke up one morning with a husband and two sons and by the end of the day it was just her. And the next morning? She woke up and moved forward. And she has kept going each day since then. I’m incredibly sad that she had to experience that. At the same time I’m grateful that she found a way to share her story because it gave me a lot of hope. I read several different books by widows but Nancy’s will always be special. She’s my hero.

I eventually reached out to Nancy and she told me about Soaring Spirits International, a great resource and source of support for widows and widowers.

There are many other people who helped me along the way, including friends, family, and strangers whose words I found in books and blogs. I would really like to pay it forward. And, as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, I can now provide additional insight on grief and recovery.

While I am working to organize my story, I thought I would reach out and see if any of you would be willing to share any tips on things that have helped you through your own grief? I would love to include real-life examples of ways that people have handled grief. And if you have any other tips I would also appreciate those! You can either comment on WordPress, Facebook, or Medium. You can also email me directly at danell.tenyenhuis@danellt9.com.

Thanks everyone and stay tuned for more!

If you enjoyed this story, please consider subscribing to Medium with my referral link. As a Medium membr, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story.

https://danellt9black.medium.com/membership

Posted on

Three Million Minutes

That’s how long Patrick has been gone. Okay, technically it’s 3,155,040 minutes but It was easier to round it down. Either way 3 MILLION conveys the enormity of the loss. On the other hand, if we were together nearly 30 years, he was a part of my life for over 15 MILLION minutes and that’s the important number.

This year has been a little harder for me and I didn’t completely realize it until my friend pointed out the “intense trio of 3 days, his birthday, Easter, and his passing.”

I knew Easter was late this year but I didn’t make the connection that this is the latest it’s been since he died which put it right in the middle of “THE WEEK.” Now that I realize the connection, it makes it a little easier.

For the last two years I have frequently reminded my clients that the pandemic is an added stress. This usually comes up when they are telling me they are having a hard time getting out of a “funk” or they don’t understand why they are so anxious. I feel it is important to recognize when we are under stress. I often hear people say “ I should be able to handle this.” What they mean is “I don’t really have a good reason to be sad or depressed.” I’m here to tell you that A) You don’t need a reason. And B) There may be a reason you haven’t considered.

When I point out a reason someone might be having a difficult time I ask them to give themselves grace. It’s okay to have difficult days. I know April 20th is always going to be hard. I can’t take off work this year because I haven’t accrued time but I made sure my boss knew the significance of the days. And, being a counselor, she made sure to ask me what I need from her. Luckily I have group supervision on Wednesday so I will meet with my boss and 7 other counselors for 2 hours and if I need a little extra love, they’ll be there for me!

I think I’m actually going to be okay. I’ve mentioned previously that I have a friend who is a spiritual medium. I know everyone may not understand or agree with this but it is something that has brought me comfort. And believing that my friend is able to send me messages from Patrick does not diminish my belief in God. I still believe in God and heaven and I believe that it is possible for our loved ones to send us signs after they are gone. And this friend is the one who mentioned the intense trio of 3 days. More on that in a minute.

Yesterday I was briefly put in “Facebook Jail.” I think there may be different levels of jail for Facebook. I was put in jail because my post “went against our community standards on human exploitation.” This decision was reversed a few minutes after I told them they misinterpreted my post and I can no longer see what all of the punishments were but I remember two of them. 1) I could not advertise for 30 days. Um, okay, I wasn’t planning on doing that anyway. And 2) I could not livestream for 30 days (I definitely wouldn’t have been doing that either). I think the last one might have been that I couldn’t request to be added to any groups.

If you didn’t see my post, I will put it at the end of this post. I made the post on Patrick’s birthday and I told a story about the outrageous lighters he ordered days before his death. The lighters shoot flames from an exaggerated male appendage. I was careful not to use the P word but I still got in trouble! I put a picture of the lighters in the comments and mentioned my 18-year-old niece since she was the latest person to find a hidden lighter. Maybe she was the human I was exploiting? Lol

Patrick would have LOVED this story. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the idea that Facebook jail exists might have been enough to get him to create a new account and make it his sole mission to get put in Facebook jail. It saddens me to think of all the entertainment we missed out on!

So, back to the message from my friend. She mentioned that she had a message for me and it’s my understanding that the messages are not always as clear as I would imagine so it sometimes takes a while for her to convey them to me. She’s still working on the whole message but she did tell me that Patrick loved the story and was very happy that his lighters caused problems. This surprises no one!

I guess I should sleep soon. Bruce is out of town tonight so I’m not worried about keeping him awake. Plus, he can sleep through just about anything! Speaking of Bruce, I’m happy to say that I’ve now spent well over a million minutes with him and I’m very grateful for this. He continues to be there for the girls and I. Last week he came with us to spruce up Patrick’s headstone and he ended up in his hands and knees washing it off. I was filled with love as I watched my current husband lovingly clean my late husband’s headstone. I don’t know how I got this lucky twice but I am very grateful. Today will be a little bit easier because he will be by my side. ❤️

Here’s the birthday post:

Happy Birthday in heaven Patrick! ❤️❤️❤️

In honor of his birthday, I have a funny story. Shortly before Patrick died he had bought pipes for Phillip Weathers and Denny Boyles. They were ridiculous looking and one was an actual corn cob pipe! I knew they had arrived but I could never find them. I know they were sitting in boxes on a coffee table and I think the boxes were thrown into recycling during the chaos of that day. I was sad that we never found them but I discovered another surprise while I was looking.

When I pulled up our Amazon order history to confirm we had received the pipes, I saw he had ordered a unique lighter, a little golden man with a very large appendage from which the flame was intended to shoot out! Only Patrick would order something like this! And the shipment hadn’t arrived yet!

The day the box arrived was a difficult day. We had an appointment at the funeral home for a private viewing. Denny drove the girls and I there and I decided I would let him open the box when we got home. He had no idea what to expect but we were all surprised to find not one, but two lighters in the box. We had a good laugh!

We thought about what we would do with the lighters and we decided to share them with each other in the Cranberry Lambic tradition.

Many years ago someone (possibly Dina or Jeff) bought a beer that was called Cranberry Lambic. I’m not a beer drinker and I never tasted it but it is apparently the most foul-tasting beer that exists! Once the first one was drank the purchaser decided they couldn’t finish the rest and decided to “gift” them to others. Over the years the siblings came up with elaborate schemes to sneak the beer to their unsuspecting victims. You might find one in your fridge after guests left. Or maybe it was in the ice chest you carried home after a party. One particularly cruel sibling carefully removed the label and replaced it with a Sierra Nevada label. I believe the rule is that if you start drinking it, you have to finish!

When Patrick died the siblings agreed that it would be fitting to leave a bottle with him to ensure that he was “it”. So now the lighters are passed around and hidden in each other’s houses. Last Friday we had a gathering at Matthew TeNyenhuis’ and Denny mentioned that a lighter might make an appearance. As I left Matt’s house I realized I hadn’t heard if it was left there or not. Apparently Denny carefully opened and resealed a bag of tortilla chips and made sure they were left there. A few days later my 18-year-old niece, Ella TeNyenhuis, had friends over for tacos. So now Ella is it!

I’m so glad that Patrick’s humor has outlasted him! I’ll put a pic of the lighters in the comments!

Posted on

Index to my Medium Stories

I no longer post all of my writing on WordPress. This index will be kept up-to-date with all of my stories, separated by topic. If you don’t have a Medium account you can read more than 5 per month by clearing your cache. Or I can send a friend link for you to read the story for free. The link below is a friend link so it won’t count against your 5 stories.

My Medium Index

Posted on

Time Capsule

Random items bring back fond memories.

Teenage Patrick – Photo courtesy of Danell teNyenhuis Black (author)

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Thomas Campbell

There is no rule book for handling the belongings of your late husband. I did not think I would be going through his things four and a half years later, but I’ve done it at my own pace.

Bruce and I combined our households in mid-2019. Moving was stressful and luckily we have a large garage with room for a lot of boxes. We intended to do a little at a time and then time got away from us.

I’ve had multiple boxes of Patrick’s things that I was holding onto. I was planning to get them all together and then go through and discard anything meaningless. How do you decide what is meaningless? I decided to consolidate the mementos into one box and save it as a time capsule available for the girls or their children to look through in the future.

One box was clearly items that had been packed up in college, moved home, and possibly never touched again.

I picked up a very worn deck of cards with a University of the Pacific logo and a campus picture on them. I’m positive that we played spades in his dorm room or apartment using those cards. The cards might not be played again but they could still be picked up and the holder could imagine their father, or possibly their grandfather, handling the same cards.

A cup made of leather with the name Pat on it. Clearly a high school art class project. Filled with pennies. The pennies could be cashed in for a few bucks. Or they could age in the time capsule, along with the ziplock bag labeled rare coins.

A “guess list” notebook. Used as a sign-in for his bachelor party. Some of the entries intelligible, most nonsensical. Smiling at the thought of Patrick with his high school friends and cousins. Damian reminding him that he knew me first. John not mentioning that he dated me first.

High school ID cards for each of his years at Hoover High School. A school picture and a picture of Patrick running for Sierra Freshman High School.

A book of poems and short stories published in his senior year. Contributors include a classmate who is now the CEO of Valley Children’s Hospital and another who owns a small publishing company. Patrick had several contributions including this one about his great-grandmother. Of course they got his last name wrong!

Biz Nona by Patrick teNyenhuis

High school awards including certificates and plaques. Possibly I will add the yearbooks but for now they are on the bookshelf for easy access.

Cassette tapes that are mostly useless now. A picture from his high school prom with his date Heidi. A pair of dice.

My favorite item is a souvenir keychain from Magic Mountain. If you look into it and hold it up to the light you will see a picture of Patrick and I. I’ve always loved the picture.

Magic Mountain | Photo courtesy of Danell teNyenhuis Black (author)

There are physical therapy tools to measure range of motion and pain sensation. And there are needles and thread to do minor repairs while away from home.

A Jiminy Cricket figurine.

A butane lighter and a nesting tin cup.

A metal “Honor Carrier” cash box from his days delivering The Fresno Bee. Locked but easy to open with a screw driver. Inside are various items including his high school valedictorian medal.

There are various other items that I will leave as surprises for the girls. I realize that many things could be tossed in the trash. I save them because they meant enough to him that he saved them. And I feel close to him as I look through them.

I also know there are still more mementos in the garage. Some day I will find them all and finish the time capsule. And when I do, I will look through everything again.