Kim Meredith

Kim's life changed dramatically in February 1993, when she became a widow at the age of 40 and a single parent to a 10-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. Her husband of 15 years, David, died after surviving 2 weeks as a quadriplegic as a result of a car accident. Feeling alone, afraid, and confused, Kim journalled at night in an attempt to give order once again to her shattered life while teaching high school Spanish during the day. As the months went by she readjusted her life's frequency and began to trust in her inner voice, her "whispers." After 10 years of writing, her first book, Listen for the Whispers: Coping with Grief and Learning to Live Again, was published by Cable Publishing in July 2010. While a tribute to her family's journey from unfathomable heartache to a life once again filled with love and laughter, this inspiring story is for everyone who has experienced the loss of someone beloved to them. Currently, Kim lives in Lancaster, PA, with her new husband Tom. She continues to teach and fills her free time with writing, speaking, and enjoying her 2 new grandchildren. Her story, A True Treasure, about her first grandson, Max, appeared in the 2010 Barnes and Noble special edition, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas. She has another story, My Man Harry, which will appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Dog's Life in 2011.

Articles:

Don’t Forget to Check Your Dip Stick: Maintaining Strength During Grief

After crouching on a lime-green foam kneeling pad, he pushed with all of his might against the 6’x6’ thick concrete cover. “Wait, Dad, let me help you,” I interrupted as I joined him by squatting down near the well cover, planting my feet firmly in the bordering sedum. “Oh, I can do it. Just hold it up when I lift it,” my father instructed me in a firm voice. He pried open the lid with a long metal gardening tool which was designed for digging up weeds, but now he was using it like a giant bottle opener. I leaned […]

The Other Side of Grief

Have you ever flipped over a colorful seashell that was wedged in the wet sand and examined its other side? You were probably first attracted by the reflection of the flashy hues of the exterior. But the smooth, concave inner surface of the vessel, which once protected life with a mirrored piece, also has a subtle beauty of its own. Now tossed up on the shoreline by the turbulent sea, it is half, not whole. The mollusk is gone along with the other matching section of the shell, making both sides exposed. There is a new purpose for it now […]

A Husband’s Voice Lives On

“Help me die!” Not a sound came out of his mouth, but I could magically decipher the startling message by reading his lips, the only body parts, along with his eyelids, that he could still move. My husband of fifteen years, David, lay motionless on white pristine sheets on a hospital bed that rocked back and forth while tangled tubes transferred nutrients and complicated machines whirled, forcing air into his dormant lungs to keep him alive. Two weeks prior, he was in a one car accident on his way home from a haircut and now, my partner was a quadriplegic. […]

Father’s Day: Not a Day, but a Legacy

My children have passed over the dividing line. They have been alive more years now without their father than they were with him. My daughter Samantha was 12 years old when her father died and Rick was just 10. They were merely children when they had to say goodbye to him after a car accident and a final 2 week stay in the hospital as a quadriplegic. Their last visual was of a motionless, mute forty-four-year old man who could only signal his love to his children with a blink of his eyes. But previously, his total dedication as a […]

Grief Can Cause Loss of Confidence; Spring Can Help it Rebound

All of us have it. But we can lose it temporarily. Yet, all of us have the power to find it again too. Confidence is the extra battery pack that fuels our inner spirit. It propels us to greater achievements and encourages us to walk through doors that we might otherwise avoid. We all need that extra boost when life challenges us. Walking in for our first job interview, we needed to make a good impression. Confidence gave us an edge. This positive inner force helped us to stand a little taller and to feel a little stronger. “Confidence comes […]

The Boogie Man Isn’t Real, but Fear Is

You can’t see it. You can’t touch it. But the sensation of fear is very real. It is overwhelming and makes us do things that we would not normally do. When our confidence is shaken and we are thrust into a different personal direction, we naturally get a bit scared and unnerved. It is a new territory and we are unsure of what to do and how to act. Unfortunately, life does not come with a manual and we can’t merely thumb through a Table of Contents looking for answers. Grief can make a person feel fearful. The comfort and […]

A Special Ornament

The four-inch light blue glass ball is always the initial ornament placed on our annual family Christmas tree. For our first Yuletide Season together, my new husband David and I travelled to my childhood home in upstate New York to be with family. We saved the money that we would have spent on a tree, and instead we used the fund for gas and presents. As a compromise, we trimmed a scrawny, potted Norfolk spruce that already filled an empty corner in our sparsely decorated first apartment. The special, delicate ball with the white handpainted message “David 1948” represented all […]

Widow Reflects on Labor Day and its Complications

Work is present in our daily lives on many levels. We labor at our formal employment, we toil on building relationships, and we act to keep ourselves fit and healthy. All of these chores fit one of the dictionary definitions of the word work. Each one is a “purposeful effort.” As we are closing in on Labor Day, I find myself with mixed emotions. This symbolic end of summer is usually marked with picnics and barbecues, which I love. Any excuse to eat outside and cook on the grill is fine with me! That means less work and more fun. […]

Winter is Widow’s Season of Grief

Every person’s grief has a season. Mine happens to be winter, and therefore it includes Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, this annual holiday of love and romance will always remind me of the darkest chapter of my life. As a child, I would get very excited at the beginning of February as I prepared my Valentines for our class party. First, I went to the local drug store with my mother and selected the perfect box of assorted small cardboard Valentines. Each one had its own thin white envelope on which I carefully printed a classmate’s name. Displaying my assortment on a […]