The Difference Between ......

                                                                   source

...... here and there.

"Here" is where most of you are.  Drowning in grief, gasping for air and fighting to just keep your nose above the pain that threatens to pull you down.

"There" is where most people see us after a couple of years of grief.  Including some of us.
"There" is where we've "moved on", graduated,  and have found a new and wonderful life.
"There" is a mythical place.
You need to know that.

I am almost 6 1/2 years out (at some point you stop counting in months, just as you did when your children reached 2).
It's been a very, very long road.  The first part of the road was by far the hardest.  It was chock full of tsunamis and undertow and hurricanes.  I felt that I barely survived one massive wave, only to be knocked down by another.
There were many times that I almost gave up, let the fierce pull of grief pull me under and out to the sea.
But I didn't.

So now I'm "there".
Wherever "there" is.

It's been a fluid year here on "Widow's Voice".  Those of you who've been here for a while have seen a lot of changes.  We've never had this many changes in so short a time before.  You've seen quite a few writers leave, and watched new ones step in.
Change is hard for widowed people.  We've already experienced the most massive change of our lives, we don't want any more, thank you very much.

But change is a fact of life.
Just as death is.

Life moves forward, children grow, friends go, new friends enter, and years march forward.
Situations change, sometimes forcing us to change with them.
But being widowed doesn't change.
It's a part of us and will always be a part of us.
How we handle it changes.
How we handle the waves and undertow changes.
But we never "graduate" to a perfectly calm and wave-free world.

That's not why writers leave.
Yet that's how we appear to react.
We congratulate them for being "there".
We praise them for moving on, for being able to leave this behind them.
For ...... being done with being widowed.
Or so it seems.

I wish it were that easy.

We are never done.
We are never "there".

Yes, we gain strength over the years.
Strength that makes us able to withstand the waves and the undertow.
But they still come.
It just takes more to knock us down.

Writers leave because situations change, whatever they are.
Sometimes our workload changes.  Sometimes our home life changes, forcing us to focus more on that area than on writing.

Sometimes, a lot of times, we run out of things to say.
That doesn't mean we're done.
It just means that it's time for someone else.

And that, my friends, leaves shoes to fill.
A very difficult task.
Because we are a varied group.
Some of us are only weeks out on this road.
Some of us are years out.

And we all want someone to connect with.
Someone who mirrors us and our current situation.
When we're only months out, we want someone who can write about the cold, dark and painful place where we reside.  In fact, those are the posts that get the most comments.
The painful posts.

When we're a few years out, we want someone who's made it past that point and can show us the light at the end of the tunnel, wherever that is.

It's hard to find a writer who will please everyone.
In fact, it's impossible to find a writer who will please everyone.
That's the nature of the beast.
The beast, being life.

Sometimes it's just plain difficult to find a writer.
We are a large group, getting larger every day, unfortunately.
But we're not an easily accessed group.  And it's difficult to find someone who we think will fit.
The smaller the niche, the harder to find (like writers who are widowers!).

But we'll keep searching.
And we know, that although change is difficult for us, we are a group that's full of compassion and empathy and love.
All of the writers have felt that.
And we know they'll continue to feel it.

Even if they never get to "there".