Epic Eric
Last week my husband Eric shot a 69 at the Texas Rangers Golf Club. It had been many years since he broke 70, and never in the time that I have known him. If you aren’t familiar with golf, just know this is a rare score for most amateur golfers, even for those as skilled as Eric. Although his personal best is a 66, this score is . . . Epic! This is to be celebrated! But knowing him, I can count on one hand the number of people he shared it with, including me. He is not on social media and I’m not sure he would tell anyone at…
Living On Through Social Media
I was scrolling through my Facebook friend list looking for someone, when I realized that I have four Facebook friends that are deceased yet their accounts are still active. Dan, my late husband, has one of those active accounts. I can’t bring myself to close his account. We talked about it, a discussion triggered by a fascinating article in Reader’s Digest (one guy lost his wife in childbirth and literally closed her account as soon as he got home from the hospital!) I could never do that, but everyone is different. I asked Dan, and he said yes, he did want me to close his account if something happened to…
Moving Forward, Not Moving On
“Are you ready to taste wine?” asked Bill Frick, owner of Frick Winery. Frick Winery is a boutique winery in Dry Creek Valley, near Sonoma, California, and my favorite winery. I had insisted we visit it on our one day wine-tasting trip back in March. “Yes!” the four of us chorused. He placed three tasting glasses on the counter, and then he said, “I have a special glass for Pritam.” He placed another glass on the counter. I glanced at it, and noticed a telltale small black bag from Edmonds’ Comstock Jewelers inside of it. In an instant, I knew what was about to happen and I started freaking out.…
Dan’s Divot Tool
There’s this tool used in golf called a divot tool. You carry it in your pocket. When your ball lands on the green, it will often leave an indentation called a ball mark in the carefully groomed grass of the green. It’s good golf etiquette to find and fix your ball mark as soon as you reach the green. My ball hardly ever lands on the green so I don’t fix many divots. But the first thing I put in my pocket when I go golfing is a well-used, scuffed, burnished divot tool. You see, it belonged to my late husband, Dan Potts, and he loved that thing (and he…
Reflections on Loss
I questioned myself as to whether I ought to write yet more about this topic, for a column titled “Edmonds Fitness Corner.” After two years, people might be wondering, is she ever going to get over it? But really, the answer is no. It just doesn’t work like that. I have adapted, changed, grown, learned to manage the most unpleasant of feelings, but there will never be closure. After two years I’m sensing a pattern—that this part of each year will be the most difficult for me regarding my husband’s death. The holidays are stressful enough for most of us, but are even more poignant with the loss of a…
This Too Shall Pass
Happy New Year to our Edmonds community and readers of this column! I’m glad to be back in the Edmonds Fitness Corner. It’s been about six months since my column has appeared for My Edmonds News. Some of you may remember that I lost my husband Coach Dan Potts last January, and I wrote last February about exercising through grief. Subsequently, last year went on to be the most difficult of my life, and although I religiously exercised my way through it, there were plenty of other parts of my life that fell by the wayside, including writing. It felt like I barely kept my head above water. They say…
A Guide To Exercising Through Grief
Recently I lost my husband and my entire life changed in an instant. I am struggling to make sense of how my life looks and feels on a daily basis, and I wonder every day about the future that stretches ahead of me like a desolate empty road. That’s what it feels like, anyway. They keep telling me only time will heal this heartache. In the meantime, I am supposed to go on living somehow. Besides the love and support of my family and friends, there are only two things keeping me grounded and functioning: working and exercising. In a crisis, the energy to exercise may disappear entirely. People have…
