Widowhood....a perfect description

It will be 4 years next month that Randy passed away. This would probably have been fitting to post then but I wanted to share it now. This is super long and I don’t expect most of you to read it. I’m not sure I would if I weren’t a widow. I'm often asked by friends and family and my past two therapists what’s hard about being a widow and it’s just so hard to explain. My situation is somewhat different because I technically lost Randy 5 years before he died. One would think 9 years would be ample time to grieve; again, I think I would. But in many ways it gets harder. Randy and I weren’t like many couples. We weren’t super lovey dovey. We didn’t feel the need to talk several times a day if we weren’t together. We were kind of independent in our own ways but also very connected. I never ever realized how much I depended on him just to get through life and what a blessing he was in my life. Sooooo I saw the actor John Schneider recite this poem or story online about recently losing his wife (the author is unknown.) It’s very heartbreaking as he has a hard time getting through it but I just kept thinking YES! This is how it is. This is how I feel. This is what being a widow is like. So I’m sharing it if not for anyone but myself and my next therapist. Thanks for the love!  

Widowhood is more than missing your spouse’s presence

It’s adjusting to an alternate life

It’s growing around a permanent amputation

Now for some it’s also a long time friend saying “I will always be there for you” and then they also disappear. They disappear from your life.

Widowhood is going to bed for the first time or the thousandth time and still the loneliness never feels normal.

The empty bed is a constant reminder.

The night no longer brings intimacy and comfort but the loudness of silence and the void of connection. That’s what it brings.

Widowhood is walking around the same house you’ve lived in for years and it just no longer feels like home. Because home incorporated a person, and they’re not there.

Home sickness fills your heart. And the knowledge that it will never return, never return, haunts you.

Widowhood is seeing all your dreams and your plans that you shared as a couple crumble and vanish around you.

It’s the painful process of searching for new dreams that include only you. And you see them as like amounting to Mt Everest and every small victory of creating new dreams for yourself include very new awful shades of grief that their death propelled you into this path.

Widowhood is second guessing everything that you thought that you knew, everything that you thought you knew about yourself.

Your life was molded together with another’s and without them, you have to relearn all your likes, all your hobbies, all your fears, all your goals.

The renaissance of a new person makes you proud and heartbroken simultaneously.

Widowhood is being a stranger in your own life.

It’s the unnerving feeling of watching yourself from outside your body.

It’s going through the motions of what was your life but being somehow detached from all of it.

You don’t recognize yourself. Your previous life feels like but a vapor, like a mist of a dream.

And you begin to wonder if it ever happened at all.

Widowhood is the irony of knowing that if one person was here to be your support, you would have the strength to grieve. That one person. The thought twist and confuses you. If only they were here to hold you and to talk to you, you would have the tenacity to tackle this unwanted life, you could do it together, tackle the arduous task of moving on without them.

Widowhood is missing the one person who could truly understand what is in your heart, to share that funny joke, the embarrassing incident, the fear compelling you or the frustration tempting you.

Now to anyone else you would have to explain and that’s too much effort so you keep it to yourself.

And the loneliness, it just kind of grows inside of you.

Widowhood is struggling with identity, “who are you if not their spouse? What do you want to do if not the things you planned together? What brand do you want to buy if it is the one you two shared for all those years? What is your purpose if the job of investing into your marriage is taken away? Who is my closest companion when my other half isn’t here?”

Widowhood is feeling restless because you’ve lost your identity, your partner, your lover, your friend, your travel companion, your coparent, your security, and your life and you’re drifting to an unknown destination.

Widowhood is living in a constant state of missing the single most intimate relationship you’ve ever had. There’s no hand to hold, there’s no body next to you, no partner to share your burden.

Widowhood is being alone in a crowd of people that’s feeling sad even if you’re happy. It’s confusion, it’s feeling guilty while you live.

It’s looking back while moving forward.

It’s like feeling hungry but nothing sounding remotely good or appetizing.

It’s every special event turning bittersweet.

Oh yes! My God! My beloved, it’s much more than simply missing their presence.

It’s becoming a new person whether you want to or not, you can’t help it.

It’s fighting every emotion mankind can feel at the very same moment and trying to function in life at the very same time.

Widowhood is frailty.

Widowhood is strength.

Widowhood is darkness.

Widowhood is rebirth.

Widowhood, sadly, is life changing

And widowhood makes awful seem quite not so bad.

If you’re going down this road, it’s well traveled. But you have to walk it alone.

God bless and guide each and every step until you see them again and reach their hand out and say “My beloved, did you miss me?”

“You bet I did!”