Are You Done Being Widowed Yet?

I am filling in for Amanda today who is swamped with school work. She will be back next week!


It has been seven years, six months, and 19 days since the word WIDOW first applied to me.

In the first moments after Phil's accident, I hoped that he would survive the impact of that car colliding with his body.

In the first few hours after I knew his accident was fatal, I hoped I was living a terrible dream from which I could eventually wake up.

The next several painful hours I just hoped I could live through having to repeat the words...Phil died, Phil died, Phil died, Phil died. Every time I had to say the words I held back the vomit that wanted to come out with them. Every time someone screamed back into the phone at me, because they could not believe the words I was saying, I felt slapped by what was now our shared reality.

I didn't really think about the fact that I was a widow until the morning after Phil died. I woke up to his alarm sounding at four thirty in the morning. For a minute I expected to hear his arm reach across and turn off the alarm clock, then the memories of the day before flooded my mind. I laid there in bed, eyes closed, hoping that I would reach over and find Phil in bed right beside me. Keeping my eyes squeezed shut, I slid my hand across to his side of the bed. My searching fingers were met by the cold sheet where his warm body should have been...demonstrating that this was not a dream, just a new and awful reality. As tears slid down my cheeks I  realized for the first time that I was a widow. The image that popped into my head at that moment didn't resemble me at all. It was like staring into a mirror and seeing a reflection that you've never seen before, then touching your face as the reflection does the same. Suddenly you know that you are looking at an altered version of yourself that you've never met, and don't particularly want to get to know, yet understanding that you have no choice.

Since that moment of dawning realization I have spent years and years and years getting to know this new version of me. The widowed version of me. The altered, never to return to the old me, version of me. At one point I hated the person I'd unwillingly become. I couldn't look her in the eye;she knew too much, hurt too much, needed too much. I felt sorry for her, and so did everyone else. That sorrow threatened to swallow me whole. I was so tempted to drown in the depth of the pain.

So, I didn't look at her. I ignored her, and kept trying to remember to breathe while I worked equally hard to forget how to love. Because the love hurt so damn much. I ached with need, I swam in self-pity, I spewed curse words or laid on the floor weeping...depending on the day. I was either repelled by or obsessed with yesterday, while doing my best to feel nothing in the present, not quite believing that tomorrow would actually come. The one thing I consistently did NOT do was try to get to know the widowed me. She revolted me, because I didn't want to be her. I didn't want to live her life.

Eventually, out of a desperate need to figure out if I was losing my mind for good, I sought out other widowed people. I started with one who 'looked' nothing like me. Our experiences were polar opposites, with the exception of the fact that both our husbands were dead. But, in a span of only two hours and twenty minutes this woman introduced me to the widowed version of myself in a new way, and for the first time I did not turn away in horror. Using her mirror I looked like a survivor, instead of an abject, tortured soul. Looking through her eyes I saw a version of myself that deserved respect, and consideration. She admired the widowed me not because I was so strong, but because I was willing to be weak. She told me that survival was possible, and I could see the truth of that statement in her experienced eyes.

Since that one powerful moment I have been determined to help other widowed people see their new widowed self in a different light. Our widowed selves have been changed by love. We have also been changed by grieving the loss of that love. Our transformation from our old self to this new widowed self is so painful that viewing this metamorphosis as beautiful seems impossible. Yet, beauty can be found in every tear, in every memory, in every determined step forward into a new and unexpected life. Our widowed selves are have been forced into a cocoon mode because of the pain of our loss. We have shrunk into ourselves in order to find the strength, the courage, and the will to recreate our lives. Breaking out of that cocoon may well be the life work of this phase of our life journey.

How can we be anything but changed by a loss that destroys the foundation we have built our lives upon? Both poets and politicians have frequently noted that there is a danger in forgetting our roots. The consensus seems to be that we must remember where we came from in order to get where we are going. Following that logic, I don't think that I should forget that I have been widowed. Being widowed created the woman I am today. The butterfly wings that eventually emerged from my grief cocoon are colored with Phil's love, and I will use these wings to fly for as long as I am able, in his honor.

Please learn to love the widowed you, and don't let anyone convince you that "the widow card" is a liability. That card with your widowhood em-blazed on the front is a survivor card. Tuck it into your back pocket and know you can count on this card when the going gets tough. Seek others who have this card in their pocket too, they will be an invaluable point of reference as you get to know your widowed self.

In the early days of my loss my only hope was to survive the pain of losing Phil for just one more minute. Over the past seven years I have become willing (and able) to hope for more than minute to minute survival. Today I live a full life that honors my past, makes the most of my present, and never assumes that tomorrow is guaranteed. I actively hope for that kind of life for every one of my cocooned widowed friends. My widowed self found a way to embrace and nurture the glimmer of hope provided by those that walked this road before me as I struggled day by day to break out of my cocoon. Hope fueled by widowhood?
 Believe it or not that is one powerful combination. Hope matters.