2nd month thoughts on widowhood.
Mu husband passed on March 31, 2010. Since then I've had time to think about what makes this so much worse than other deaths I have experienced in my life. There has been two: a miscarrage and the death of my mother.
The miscarriage was horrible. It happened in the sixth month and we'd made all sorts of plans. It was a new feeling for me as I'd never wanted children and had not expected to have them(just a feeling). I was devastated and thought surely nothing could be as bas as this.
My mother passed away eight years later. We were close, but I had such faith in God that I made it through.
But my husband passing away has been the hardest loss I've ever experience. Why? I asked myself. Why is this death the hardest.
And my answer: I lost everything when my husband died. You see we'd planned to grow old together. We had built a life together. We had friends that were out friends.
When I had the miscarriage, I lost a child that I had not known. He was my future.
When I lost my mother: I was an adult, independent. I hadn't made plans to retire with her, travel the world. I hadn't relied on her to do certain task around the house. I didn't expect to spend evenings, weekends, nights with her. I didn't expect to snuggle up with her at night. My mother was part of my life, but in no way did I see her as my life. And I'd spent my life knowing she'd most likely go before me.
Not so with my husband. You see I had built a life with him. We'd made plans about our future: where we'd live, what we would do. Every day--from what I'd cook, to what I'd wear involved him. He was my past, present, future. And in one day it all ended. Now, I was left looking at the differences and I realilzed I had a miscarriage and life went on. My mom died and life went on. But when you lose a husband, life still goes on, but it is a changed life and it takes a while to catch up.
That's what we're all doing: trying to catch up. Trying to figure out what this new life is. But it took decades to plan the old life. We started on the day we married. We had plenty of time to sit down and map out when and if we would have kids. How to invest money for retirement. Where to retire. How much to help our kids, etc. And we had help from our spouses every step of the way. But this new life, this unexplained life, the path we're on now--we've got to make all the decisions and we don't have years to do it.
If you have a house, got life insurance, got bills--well you don't have twenty or thirty years to decide what to do. You've got to do it fast, almost overnight. At least within a year. And they're tough decisions done without the one person that mattered most in our lives.
Suddenly it's like we're transformed into a parallel universe, a place where everything looks the same, only the person you are in this universe is alone.
It is a disconcerting feeling. You feel isolated--alone. Like there is no one to care for you. No one to love you. You go from being cherished to just another person walking through life.
The miscarriage was horrible. It happened in the sixth month and we'd made all sorts of plans. It was a new feeling for me as I'd never wanted children and had not expected to have them(just a feeling). I was devastated and thought surely nothing could be as bas as this.
My mother passed away eight years later. We were close, but I had such faith in God that I made it through.
But my husband passing away has been the hardest loss I've ever experience. Why? I asked myself. Why is this death the hardest.
And my answer: I lost everything when my husband died. You see we'd planned to grow old together. We had built a life together. We had friends that were out friends.
When I had the miscarriage, I lost a child that I had not known. He was my future.
When I lost my mother: I was an adult, independent. I hadn't made plans to retire with her, travel the world. I hadn't relied on her to do certain task around the house. I didn't expect to spend evenings, weekends, nights with her. I didn't expect to snuggle up with her at night. My mother was part of my life, but in no way did I see her as my life. And I'd spent my life knowing she'd most likely go before me.
Not so with my husband. You see I had built a life with him. We'd made plans about our future: where we'd live, what we would do. Every day--from what I'd cook, to what I'd wear involved him. He was my past, present, future. And in one day it all ended. Now, I was left looking at the differences and I realilzed I had a miscarriage and life went on. My mom died and life went on. But when you lose a husband, life still goes on, but it is a changed life and it takes a while to catch up.
That's what we're all doing: trying to catch up. Trying to figure out what this new life is. But it took decades to plan the old life. We started on the day we married. We had plenty of time to sit down and map out when and if we would have kids. How to invest money for retirement. Where to retire. How much to help our kids, etc. And we had help from our spouses every step of the way. But this new life, this unexplained life, the path we're on now--we've got to make all the decisions and we don't have years to do it.
If you have a house, got life insurance, got bills--well you don't have twenty or thirty years to decide what to do. You've got to do it fast, almost overnight. At least within a year. And they're tough decisions done without the one person that mattered most in our lives.
Suddenly it's like we're transformed into a parallel universe, a place where everything looks the same, only the person you are in this universe is alone.
It is a disconcerting feeling. You feel isolated--alone. Like there is no one to care for you. No one to love you. You go from being cherished to just another person walking through life.
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