Confessions of a Mediocre Widow

by Catherine Tidd

  Now that I was alone, I needed to do things like trouble-shoot my plumbing and find out where to get the best deal on tires. Being the mom and the dad meant that I had to broaden my interests past what was in People magazine and into deeper subjects…like what was in Consumer Reports. I had no idea how to fix my garbage disposal, what fertilizer to use on my grass, and what the optimum temperature was to grill a steak. And even though my female friends were great at a lot of things, I needed those friendships with the men in their lives.

  Because I had no man in mine.

  It got to the point where I thought enough was enough. If I wanted my friendships to survive (because, after all, I had been friends with their husbands, too), I had to prove to them that they could.

  It was obvious that I couldn’t wait for everyone else to make this okay. It would be up to me. And that made sense. I mean, for all they knew, it could be really painful for me to be around other couples when I no longer had my better half. And it was. It was incredibly painful. But my instinct told me that I needed to get used to it and the longer I waited to get out there socially, the more painful it would be to try.

  The first dinner party I put together was with my old college roommates and their husbands. I needed to have a group that would completely understand and not judge if, in the middle of the conversation, I had to excuse myself to go to my room and be alone for a moment—and they were the perfect choice. I set my dining-room table with five places instead of the usual six. I made gumbo, bought wine, and put together an appetizer. And do you know what happened?

  It was weird.

  Of course it was! It wasn’t normal! And it wasn’t anyone’s fault…that was just the phase we were all in. They were still trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about and what I didn’t. I was still trying to test out conversation starters that wouldn’t make everything come to a crashing halt. But in the middle of that weird was a little bit of fun. Enough to encourage me to keep trying.

  Night after night, I would have people over until setting a table for five instead of six became more normal. I would still bring Brad up in conversation as if it was completely natural to start sentences with “before Brad died,” and after a while my friends stopped fidgeting uncomfortably in their seats when I mentioned his name. As time went on, we all seemed to start working together to fill in what was missing the best we could.

  I didn’t wait for them to come around. I didn’t wait for them to invite me over. I took control. In a way, I forced my new situation on them until it became their new situation as well.

  And dammit, it worked. And no one was more surprised than I was.

  The husbands started looking me in the eye again. They felt comfortable laughing and starting stories with, “Remember when Brad…?” What was even more amazing was that, as the years passed, we all seemed to genuinely be friends again. I would occasionally hear from friends of his—guys he grew up with in Pennsylvania or buddies from the Air Force Academy—who would call to see how the kids and I were doing and if we needed anything. And eventually, those compassion calls developed into our own friendships, separate from Brad’s death. Our conversations became more about what we were doing now, instead of completely consumed with what we had done in the past. Sure, some Brad stories were thrown in there. And yes, our relationships had changed.

  But why shouldn’t they? Everything else had.

  15

  I didn’t realize that Brad was gone until about two months after he died.

  Oh, I knew that he’d died. But for some reason, there was a huge disconnect in my brain that didn’t allow me to comprehend that he was actually gone.

  I was walking out of Walmart when I had this little realization. You see, a few months before his accident, Brad and I had made a couple attempts to go see the movie Wild Hogs, and both times we didn’t make it. We started both date nights having dinner, and then by the time we were supposed to leave for the movie, we decided that we were having too much fun where we were to interrupt ourselves in order to go sit quietly in a movie theater.

  So we never saw it.

  Anyway, about two months after he died, I had finished my grocery shopping and was making my way out of the store when I saw the huge sign that said “Coming Soon: Wild Hogs on DVD.”

  My whole body lit up as I prepared to rush out the door so that I could call Brad and tell him that we’d finally get to see the movie. And then my euphoria literally came to a standstill as I stared at the sign and realized that he wasn’t there to call.

  When Brad was still in the Air Force in Florida, we had seen several space shuttle launches and I remember my whole body feeling the sonic boom as the shuttle made its way into space. Realizing that he was gone—that I wouldn’t be able to call him or tell him even the most trivial, everyday things—felt just like that. It was like the sudden change in the atmosphere started in my body cavity and worked its way out through a roaring in my ears. My entire body vibrated with the sudden knowledge that not only was he dead…he was gone.

  There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. Alone is something you choose to be. Lonely is not. Everyone has been lonely at some point in their lives. We’ve all had a Saturday night when it feels like everyone else is out doing something but us. We’ve all been to events where it seems like we’re the only person in the room who doesn’t know everyone else. And we’ve all sat down to a lonely Whopper at Burger King thinking, “Well, if I have to do this alone, I might as well supersize this bad boy. Who’s here to judge?”

  Well. Maybe that last one is just me.

  The difference between being “regular lonely” and being “widow lonely” is that loneliness as a widow makes you feel hollow. The best way I can describe it is like the worst kind of homesickness you can possibly imagine because you can’t exactly pinpoint what it is you’re missing. It’s more than just losing a person—it’s yearning for a way of life you had and know you will never have again. And the difference between being widowed and experiencing other types of loss is that, in most cases, we’ve lost the person we could lean on and talk to about the despair that we’re feeling. We’ve lost the person we can be the most honest with. We’ve lost the person who would hand us a box of tissues and a glass of wine, hoping that our nervous breakdown would stop before halftime was over.

  Most of us have lost the person we would have turned to when the worst thing we could have possibly imagine happening happened. We want to be able to roll over in bed and say in utter disbelief to our spouses, “Did you hear that you died? And you were so young!”

  This would be followed by a hug from them, a pat on the back, and the murmuring of some comforting words while we cried on their shoulder.

  But when we roll over…well…our spouses already know that they died. It kind of spoils it a little.

  And when we roll over, the bed is empty.

  Once we come to the realization that we are alone, most of us try to do our best to fix it. And since we can’t replace our spouses and we eventually realize that we have a smaller credit limit, making retail therapy a little more difficult, what’s left?

  Finding people who are going through the same thing we are.

  Two months after Brad died, I found myself sitting on a large beanbag chair, looking at another woman around my age who had brought her children to the same group therapy that I had. I could only bring Haley and Michael because Sarah, at twenty months old, was still too young to participate. Once a week, we would make our way downtown after the kids got home from school so that they could play with dolls, color, and go into what was brilliantly called the Volcano Room: a padded room where they could throw soft balls, roll around with large stuffed animals, and generally get out some anger that they might be too young to know they had.

  I just couldn’t figure out why only the children had access to this room.

  After a few weeks, I realize
d that taking the kids to group therapy was fulfilling one of my own needs: finding other people who had been through what I had. It makes sense, right? I mean, when you participate in any other activity—golf, tennis, or Texas Hold ’em at the local bar—you’re bound to meet people with similar interests. The same holds true for therapy. Just by showing up, we had something in common: we all had kids, all of the kids were young (and so we were all relatively young), and all of us had gone through unimaginable loss.

  “So…when did he die?” Sally asked me at the first meeting.

  “Two months ago. You?”

  “A little over a year ago.”

  What began was a friendship born of necessity. As our children drew, played with sand, and acted out “therapeutic puppet shows” with the volunteers in the room next to us, Sally and I sat covered in tears and stuffed animals in the room where the kids would eventually join us when their session was done, blatantly talking about our situations and how our lives pretty much sucked more than anyone else we knew.

  There is something invaluable about finding a friend who, when you tell them the horrific details of your story, can respond with, “Holy shit! Me, too!” Someone who understands when you tell them that the only cleaning you’ve done to your stove lately is dusting it off. Someone who doesn’t think you look weird when you show up at a restaurant with cheeks so chapped from crying that you look like a Siberian farmer.

  That magical person who won’t judge you for drinking too much wine at the Christmas party…they’ll just offer you a ride home.

  “Hey, you want to come to dinner with me and some of my friends next week?” Sally asked at the end of one session. “There are about twelve of us going, and everyone has lost their spouse. You’ll fit right in.”

  “You’re kidding!” I said. “There are groups like that? I thought all of the groups were for old people and met at churches with bad coffee.”

  “They usually do,” she said. “That’s why we formed this one—we’re more the happy-hour type, not the holier-than-thou type. A few of us started it when we met through the hospice. It just started kind of growing by word of mouth.”

  By the time I made it to my first widow(er) dinner, winter was in full swing and the Christmas lights were already out. It was about four months after Brad died, and I had driven across town to a restaurant I had never been to, more nervous than I had been in years. I mean, I’d always been a people person, but widowhood had really put those skills to the test. What if I said something wrong? What if they didn’t like me and I was on my own again?

  What in the hell had happened to my life and why was I doing this?

  When I walked in the door of the restaurant that was decorated for the holidays that were not even on my radar yet, I recognized Sally sitting at a table with a group of people who all had cocktails in front of them.

  So far, so good.

  When she spied me, Sally waved me over, gave me an enthusiastic “hi!” and started making introductions.

  We widows have such an odd language but we think it’s perfectly normal. We’ll plop down next to a new person in the group, and the first thing we’ll blurt out is, “So what’d he die from?” And then we’ll listen to some horrendous story about an accident or an illness that lasted three grueling years, while munching on pot stickers and drinking beer. After taking a non-widowed friend to a group lunch with me once, I realized how strange we must seem to the outside world. Because really all we ever talk about are sex and death.

  But I guess if you’re looking at the big picture, what else is there?

  As I glanced around at all of those faces on that first night, all I could think was, “My God. I’m not alone.” And even if I didn’t go to another event after that, that knowledge was worth the effort it took to get there.

  Our once-a-month dinners eventually spilled over into other events and we became each other’s go-to companions. Need someone to come with you to the water park with your kids? Email the group and see who wants to go. Need someone to talk to in the middle of the night? Email the group and see who’s up. Need an entire group of people to fill a race team for the fundraiser you want to participate in to honor your spouse? We’ll strap on our tennis shoes, pin that number to the T-shirt we’re wearing from the race we were in last week for someone else, and we’ll be there.

  That group was vital to me because at a time in my life when I didn’t even know who I was, they accepted me with no questions asked. I could contact any of them with the most insane ideas or personal issues, and they wouldn’t even blink an eye.

  I think I’m having a nervous breakdown, I texted Sally one night at about 1:00 a.m.

  What’s wrong?

  Someone told me that P.S. I Love You was a really good movie and I should watch it. I’ve been crying for 4 hours.

  Catherine! You need to check with me before you do something like that! And WHO told you that was a good movie for you to watch???

  My hygienist.

  I never thought I would leave that group. That feeling of normal. But after a while, I realized that it was time to move forward. The people I had “joined” with were like me—starting to get busy rebuilding their lives because they had come to terms with the fact that the old one was gone. Newer widows were joining the group, and while I felt a deep need to help them and let them know that life after a spouse’s death was possible, going to regular meetings where the grief was so raw made me feel like I was backsliding a little.

  I’ve often thought that there needs to be a Widow Support Group (for new widows) and a Widows Recovery Group (for widows who are a little further out). Those two groups need to meet on their own and then get together about twice a year for dinner. It’s important for newer widows to see from the more seasoned professionals that they will get through it. That we’re still grieving, but it’s not all-consuming and we are able to get on with our lives at some point.

  But it’s difficult for the people who have overcome so many obstacles to be reminded monthly of how damn hard all of it really is. When we sit there and listen to someone who looks completely shell-shocked talk about how she can’t get the sound of a beeping heart monitor out of her head, it’s easy to remember where we’ve been. The widows who are a little further out have moved on to subjects like wondering if we can stretch our cash to take that cruise next year that we’ve always wanted to go on, and the newer widows are still concerned with whether they remembered to put deodorant on that morning.

  I began to realize that my grief was progressing, but all that really meant to me at that point was more uncharted territory. It had always been on my radar that I would probably need to find a counselor, but I didn’t really know how to go about it. It never occurred to me, before I lost Brad, that counseling would be something I would have to shop around for. I thought a professional was a professional. They’re not all that different, are they?

  Boy, howdy. Are they ever.

  • • •

  I have always, unfortunately, been a person who cares deeply about what people around me think.

  That part of me has changed drastically over the years, but in those months after Brad died, I cared entirely too much about how the decisions I was making were going over with the people I knew. But there were so many changes and so many people that it was impossible for everyone to think that what I was doing was a good idea.

  And that started to make me feel very prickly.

  When something would come up—like dating or moving or just living this new life in general—and I would make a decision about which way to go, it was sometimes met with a disapproving look (or what I perceived was a disapproving look, but who knows? It could have just been gas). That would immediately make me want to not tell anyone anything that was going on in my life.

  This left me in a very lonely place. And in the absence of people who would approve or agree with what I was do
ing, I thought it might be time to find someone I could pay to at least smile and nod when I told her I was thinking about dating a professional arm-wrestler.

  There is a difference between grieving and depression, and although the line is blurry, it’s still there. They both cause you to feel like life as you know it is over. But after a few months, when I started feeling myself sinking even further than usual and saw my life as one big, black hole that I would never climb out of, that’s when I decided it was time to start talking to someone who might throw me a rope.

  And because my time was at a premium, it made sense to me to look for a counselor who worked in my area.

  What I didn’t know was that location should have really been last on my list of criteria, or at least midway down. It really shouldn’t matter if my therapist was in France as long as she answered her phone when I called and I felt like I could talk to her. I didn’t realize when I was looking for a professional to help that the most important thing was to find someone I clicked with.

  This was a lesson I was getting ready to learn.

  I drove to my new counselor’s home office in a neighborhood just five minutes from my own for the first time the winter after Brad died. It was gray and cold, and the sky was spitting snow. I’d left the kids with my mother, who gave me a hug when I left and an encouraging “Good luck. Don’t rush back if you need a little time after the session. I’ve got everything covered.”

  Brad had been gone for about six months, and the problems that were pounding in my brain were getting to be too much to ignore. On my drive over, I was hopeful. I’d been to counseling before and, strange as it may sound, I loved the process. I loved how someone could ask you questions and make you think about your life in a different way. I knew that what I had been dealing with in the months prior was nothing close to what I’d faced before, but I couldn’t help but be a little optimistic about the help I was sure I would receive.