Widow With a Husband

George and I were married for nineteen years; these were the best years of my life. Prior to his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 1999, we had spent those early years of our marriage in the travel business. George was CEO and founder of a west coast travel agency consortium while I managed our three travel agencies. During those rich, full-bodied years together, we traveled extensively throughout the world — from Alaska to Argentina, from San Francisco to Singapore. Never could we have imagined that Alzheimer’s disease would invade our lives and take George away before his time.

In 2006 the beginning of the end of my time with George was clear as he steadily declined in health. This was also the year that I discovered the Sophia Center where I found solace, voice and community. In July I attended the Sophia Summer Institute where I was introduced to John Fox, esteemed poet, teacher and founder of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, who taught a seminar called “Poetry as Healing.” He led the group into the world of creativity through poetry writing. That day the floodgates of my heart opened and poetry spilled forth from the depths of my soul. It was on that summer day that this book was conceived. John Fox taught that “Poems can give voice to what is raw and wounded in your life—and that honesty, creatively expressed and explored, can bolster and guide you through rough times.” Healing my breaking heart began but first my wounds cried out for cleansing and balm. Poetry writing emerged as the treatment of choice. It was then that I also made the commitment to begin the two-year master’s program in culture and spirituality at the Holy Names University —Sophia Center, Oakland, California. It was time to plunge more deeply into my spirituality, particularly at that turbulent time in my life.

Throughout my life the mystery of synchronicity has fascinated me. Carl Jung calls these phenomena, meaningful coincidences. Or as one might say more poetically, it is a wink from the Cosmos. In November of 1981 George and I met in the San Francisco Airport at the beginning of a travel agent’s trip to Israel, fulfilling our cosmic destiny. Then again in February 2005 a brochure from the Sophia master’s program came into my hands. In March 2006, the Universe, waiting for the right moment, urged me to pick up the phone to call Jim Conlon, Director of the Sophia Center. Synchronicity surrounds us, waiting for us to say “yes!”

The purpose of and vision of the Sophia Center is expressed through the concepts of Earth, Art, Spirit and Wisdom. These were generously reflected through the compassion, creativity, transformation and receptivity of my Sophia classmates and teachers. My poems slowly emerged from the dark loam of my soul through the monthly gatherings and collective voices of our wisdom circle. The seeds of poetry writing were tenderly germinated and nurtured at the Sophia Center as the first year in the program unfolded.

This book represents the past, present and future of my life with and without George. The photos provide a pictorial backdrop of the nineteen years of marriage to George and to our shared joy of world travel. The journal entries unveil my personal journey through the darkness and the light of those last years as the primary caregiver of George. The poems reveal the voice of my soul in this process of awareness and letting go, self-doubt and self-care, life and death, anxiety and spiritual transformation. These difficult, yet beautiful, years profoundly changed my life and forever transformed me. Like my poems, life bravely unfolds in the gentle holding of the light and the dark.

– Kathleen Ryan, December 2007

About Kathleen Ryan

Kathy received her Master’s Certificate in Culture and Spirituality from the Holy Names University—Sophia Center in May 2008.

She is the mother of five children, grandmother of eleven and great-grandmother of two. She is now retired after a twenty-five year career as a travel counselor in the travel industry where she specialized in group travel.

She is an active member of the Cedars of Marin Family Association, the Adult Day Services and Hospice of Napa as well as a board member of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in San Francisco.

Kathleen’s focus is Alzheimer’s research and awareness. She is a member of the Northern California Alzheimer’s Association.