The Widow's Journey
Every significant loss brings with it a grief journey that we must walk through. Each and every journey will be different from the last as well as the next. With each death, we will experience a different set of feelings, triumphs and challenges that are unique to us just as our relationships with those who have passed were. While there are some basic parts of grief that may seem ‘familiar’ to us, we will also encounter brand new feelings that will take us by surprise. Today, I’d like to talk specifically about the many challenges we face after losing a spouse.
While I can only speak from personal experience based on the perceptions of a woman who has lost her husband, I can tell you that I have observed many similarities in the over-all list of challenges one faces after losing a spouse no matter what the gender is of the couple involved. We are all finding ourselves in a position of having to 'let go' of our partner in life.
First, of course, we have to walk through those initial days of acute grief. As always, this looks different for each individual but some common denominators are shock, numbness, uncontrollable emotions, inability to concentrate, wanting to be alone, needing to be near people, fear etc. As we are fending off these types of rapidly changing moods and emotions, we also need to immediately make important decisions, mostly involving arrangements for the memorial services and/or burial. For me, I found the darkest, most difficult times to bear during those early days were bedtime and first thing in the morning. Something about climbing into the empty bed and then, waking in the morning also to an empty bed just brought the reality of the situation crashing in. I was alone.
It doesn't take us long to realize just how much we leaned on our mates during our daily lives. Every morning when I woke my first thought was of him and the fact that he was really gone. My instincts would be to reach for HIM for comfort. He was my partner, my mate and my rock when I needed consoling and so I felt like I was caught in a paradox since he was my go-to for that support I so desperately needed. I had already walked through losing both of my children with this man by my side so this realization of having to face this loss alone was stark and undeniable from the very first day. While I was fortunate enough to have family and friends willing to rally around me, internally, I still felt completely alone. If we are lucky enough to have great love in our relationship with our life partner, then we feel almost 'as one' so when one half of that equation dies, the other half feels alone, incomplete, broken.
Maintaining the Status Quo
I consider myself lucky to have incredible friends and supportive family members who felt a calling to jump right in and help when they could. They even organized a day where several folks came to my home to help me get my large property all buttoned up and prepared for a New Hampshire winter that first year. This was a really BIG blessing as I am someone who tends to take everything on myself rather than ask for help!
But once winter set in and time began to pass from weeks into months I found myself getting more and more run down as I did, out of necessity, take on all the various chores that my husband usually handled around the property.
At first, I tried to do it all. I kept up with the things he took pride in around our place like heating our home with wood in winter, planting and nurturing a large vegetable garden and keeping our lawn manicured perfectly so it looked like a lush, green carpet at all times.
'Simply speaking my truth about this was a big step for me...I was beginning to change'
