“I don’t like change,” she said.
“I know.”
“But life would be weird if we didn’t have it,” she said after thinking about it for a minute. “I don’t think I would like it if nothing ever changed.”
“That’s true.”
“At least we have each other,” she said.
After saying those wise words, she dropped my hand and raced ahead to join her brother and sister. I watched them as they chatted and occasionally slowed down to help each other scale a boulder or cross a stream. I realized that the changes that we had been through—both the good and unthinkable—had made us who we are as a family. Maybe fearful of the unknown at times but confident that together we would make it through because we’d already proven that to each other.
And that’s something I hope will never change.
• • •
I catch myself wishing, quite often, for the past when life was less complicated…when I could just look to the person lying next to me in bed and ask what he thought we should do about breakfast, buying a new car, or fixing the microwave…when people still looked at me funny (because I’ve always been on this side of crazy), but I was blissfully ignorant as to why…when the good and bad times in my relationship seemed to be the problems that everyone else in my life was having, too. And the truth is, those days seem less complicated now, but at the time there were still things that were difficult to get through.
Getting married and moving when I was so young.
Dealing with different relationship dynamics.
Quitting my job when Haley was born and feeling terrified about our finances and making it on one income.
Life is complicated. It’s complicated for everyone. Every time I wish I wasn’t dating, I remind myself that married life wasn’t always perfect either. Every time I’m trying to navigate a new path with my in-laws, I remind myself that my best friend is doing the same and her husband is alive and well. Every time I feel like I’m alone, I remind myself that there were times when I felt that way before Brad died. That life wasn’t ever as perfect as I would like to think it was. That Brad and I loved each other, but we also had hard times. That raising kids alone is hard, but raising kids is hard period. That even though the relationships I have with my friends and family are constantly in transition, the truth is that they always were.
My mom has a saying that she loves and I think of it often: If you had everyone you know put their troubles in a paper bag and you hung all those paper bags on a clothesline and someone told you that you could exchange your paper bag with someone else’s, chances are you’d take your own.
I know that I have troubles. I know that I’ve had loss. But I’ve had a lot of wonderful things happen, too…before and after Brad died. I was the one he chose to spend his life with. I’m the one who gets to have all of the wonderful memories of him that I do. I was the one who grew from our fights, who benefited from his love, and who has the honor of raising our children.
So would I choose to change my “paper bag” for someone else’s if that I meant that I wouldn’t have to be a widow? And risk losing all of the wonderful things I’ve experienced before and since then?
Not on your life.
I miss Brad every day. Every day. And I have come to understand that I always will. It’s not something that will ever go away. There will always be things that remind me of him. There will always be things that I wish he could be here to see. And there will always be times that seem more difficult because he’s not here.
I think most of us, when we begin our journey into widowhood, think that loving our husbands is an “either-or” proposition. That to move forward, we have to move on. Move on from what? Our lives? Our experiences? Do you know anyone who can do that, loss or not? ’Cause I’ll tell you right now…wherever I’m going, I’m dragging the rest of my life with me. And that means that Brad’s coming along for the ride.
But there comes a point in every widow’s journey when she has to make peace with what has happened and finally accept that, yes, this has happened to her. Most of the widows who seem to all of a sudden turn a corner have one thing in common: they stopped fighting widowhood and started to work with it. Because it takes a lot more time and effort to deny yourself the grief you feel than it does to work to accept the life—including the grief—that is now yours.
The people who have experienced losing a lifelong partner and who have successfully come out the other side…well, they’re carrying a secret. They have the miraculous ability to pay attention to their journey. And appreciate it. They watch for signs, for meaning, for something that speaks to them, and then they act on it, knowing that life is short and that they alone have a special path, one that no one else has taken. They cry when they need to. They feel everything and welcome it into their lives rather than fighting it. And once that self-awareness happens, so does a certain inner peace. It doesn’t matter if anyone else understands.
We do.
These moments of clarity are, of course, counterbalanced by self-doubt. No one can possibly navigate life successfully without sometimes questioning why they are where they are and if what they’re doing is right…and that’s true for anyone, widowed or not. It’s that questioning, that quest for insight into ourselves and where our lives are going, that keeps us growing.
Who am I now?
What do I want to do now?
Chardonnay or merlot tonight?
One thing I know for a fact is that no one has the perfect life that they seem to. You may be looking at your married friends, envying their “normal” lives, and have no idea the struggles they have been through or go through every day. You may be looking at someone who has more money, a bigger house, or kids that seem better behaved than yours…and have no idea whether they truly think their lives are fulfilling. Heck…they may not know if their lives are fulfilling. They may not have taken the time to even question it.
I know that I’ve found odd things about my own experiences with widowhood amusing. I’m somewhat proud of myself that I’ve kept my sense of humor through some of my darkest moments and experiences. But the truth is…I know I’m not alone. I’ve never laughed harder than when I’m with a group of widows. We embrace our craziness, laugh through our tears, and heal through humor. Our bond is almost always immediate, and our ability to comfort each other cannot be matched.
It was with a group of widows, years after Brad died, that I found comfort in something I thought had officially forever cemented me as the most mediocre widow that ever lived. Something that only a handful of people in my life knew about. And something that I didn’t truly find funny until I told it to a group of widows…and they laughed right along with me.
A few months after Brad died, I took on the task of finding just the right headstone. Now, this turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be because I had something very specific in mind for his peaceful spot on the side of the mountain. I wanted something natural and beautiful. Something that would look great in the mountains and that would reflect his personality.
I settled on getting a boulder—not a stone, a boulder—which I knew would be a little pricey, but I wanted to do this right. After all, how many husbands was I going to bury? I decided to have Brad’s name, his dates, and the phrase “When in Doubt, Look Up” engraved on it…which I thought was perfect, given Brad’s love of space and the need we all have sometimes to look to the heavens for divine intervention.
I was very picky about the look and wanted three stars near the beginning of the quote. And after reviewing the proofs several times, I gave the company the go-ahead to get it done.
After a couple of weeks, I was surprisingly excited when they called and said that it had been completed and installed in its new home. I mean, this was no small task. Brad was buried on the side of a mountain, after all, and this was a huge rock. The company had to lay a ceme
nt foundation so the boulder wouldn’t eventually roll down into the river, and then they had to hand-carry that sucker in.
So, when I heard it was finished, I immediately packed the kids up and drove them up to the cemetery. I stood there in misty silence, admiring my handiwork, which really was a thing of beauty. In fact, I was so proud of how it turned out that I took pictures to send to my in-laws in Pennsylvania.
When I got home, I immediately downloaded the pictures. I sat there and just stared at them trying to digest, once again, that this had really happened. That he really was gone. That I was sitting there on my couch, surrounded by three small children and looking at my husband’s headstone. And for some reason I couldn’t get over the fact that there was something not quite right about the boulder.
Then it hit me.
His birthday was wrong.
I thought I was going to throw up. I ran to my office and found the proofs that the company had sent, certain that there was no way I, the woman who at that point was determined to be Wonder Widow, could have possibly made such a monumental mistake. I shuffled through page after page, looking at the stars that I had been so adamant about looking perfect…and the birth date I had signed off on that was completely wrong.
I immediately called Kristi in a hysterical panic and told her what I had done.
At which point, she started laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.
This, you can imagine, did not help at all. It’s like laughing at someone when they tell you they’re pregnant again, on accident, for the fourth time, and they just found out that it’s going to be twins. The story may be cute and funny later, but at the time…not so much.
“Oh, Catherine,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “You can’t tell me you don’t think this is funny. You can’t tell me that Brad wouldn’t think this is funny.”
“But what am I going to do?” I asked, trying to decide if I was going to start laughing with her or hang up on her. “How can I possibly fix this? It’s a rock! A boulder! It’s immovable at this point! This was the last thing I could do for Brad…and now I’ve screwed it up!”
“Whatever,” she said dismissively. “The last thing you’re going to do for Brad is raise his three kids. Believe me, this is not that big of a deal. Do you think anyone will even notice?”
“Uh…I think his parents will notice if they ever come to visit. I’ll notice every time I go up there, and it will be a huge reminder etched in stone of what a terrible widow I am!”
“Well, just take a Sharpie up there the next time you go and turn that one into a nine so that it says the nineteenth instead of the eleventh,” Kristi said in her infinite wisdom. “No one will ever know!”
I guess there’s a reason why she works in finance and not for a memorial company.
Eventually the headstone got fixed, thanks to a couple of men with a grinder and the ability to re-etch the number. I came to the conclusion that if they had the ability to fix it, surely I wasn’t the only widow in the world who had made this mistake. And I learned two very valuable lessons that day:
1.You can try all you want to be the perfect widow, but all it takes is one typo on a tombstone to blow your cover.
2.There’s no such thing as the perfect widow.
I’ve never been perfect, and it’s quite possible that I’ve never been “normal.” And I don’t know why, when I lost Brad, I thought widowhood was the ideal place to start. It took me a while to realize that those imperfections are actually what make life interesting. I’ll never have a moment when I’ve done something idiotic (which is daily) that I won’t wish that Brad could be here to share that laugh with me.
But…that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped laughing.
I have a card that I look at every day that says, “A truly happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Since I don’t know of a bigger detour in life than widowhood, I’m doing my best to enjoy the scenery along the way to wherever it is that I’m going. Which I think Brad would appreciate. Because even before he died, he knew that I always thought the best way to find my way around when I was in a new place was to get lost for a little while.
And that, eventually, I would figure out the best way to go.
- Tips for Widow(er)s -
and those who support them
Widowhood
when normal becomes a fantasy
Tips for Supporters
Assess, ask, and act. Take a moment to assess the situation and find out what’s needed—don’t just jump in with what you think you would want. Ask if there is anything you can do, and don’t just make a hollow promise—follow through on your commitment. Don’t wait for your widowed friend to call you. Figure out your strengths (Are you good with her kids? Can you help with her in-laws? Are you good at organizing meals?) and act.
Set up a phone schedule. Do this with her mutual friends so that you know someone is calling to check on her, and put two people on it twice a week for six months minimum.
Set up a meal schedule. Go to Take Them a Meal (www.takethemameal.com) and set up an account.
Send cards. You could put her on a “card schedule.” Give her a stack of greeting cards and put on the envelope when she’s allowed to open each one. This gives her a small something to look forward to.
Set up a “kitchen table club.” Let’s face it. When the going gets tough, we want our girlfriends around us. Gather a group of four close friends for a regular monthly gathering to just catch up with each other. There is a great book on how to do this called This Is Not the Life I Ordered by Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risley, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro.
Don’t give your support an expiration date. When we go through a huge transition, we’re often surrounded by people in the beginning, and then we don’t hear from anyone a few weeks later when we really need it.
Widow(er) Tips
Immediacy is your friend. Do your best not to “borrow trouble,” and take each problem one at a time. Your immediate well-being (and that of your children) is the only thing you should be worrying about now. The rest can usually be dealt with later.
Ask for help: Believe me, everyone around you wants to do something. Put them to work if you can. It makes them feel useful.
There is no right way to act. Feel like you’re not responding to your spouse’s death the right way? That’s because there is no “right way” to respond. There were many things that I found funny and surreal when my husband was dying in the hospital, and I felt so guilty and like I wasn’t acting “widow” enough. But eventually I figured out that there is no right way to cope.
Memorializing
if i get the casket without the four-wheel drive, how much will that run me?
Tips for Supporters
Pay attention to what needs to be done. Are you a really organized person? Take over the organization of the food that everyone brings (make sure dishes are labeled with names and dates of drop-off, and so on) and make notes of who brought flowers. Are you crafty? Offer to put together photo albums for attendees to look through during the service and reception. Think of your strengths as a friend and use them behind the scenes.
Listen. Most people mistakenly think that because our spouse is gone, it’s too painful to talk about them. In reality, most people love to remember their spouses with anyone who will actively listen to them. Asking questions like, “How did you meet?” and just listening could save a lot of embarrassment from saying the wrong thing. (For more tips on what to say to someone after the loss of a spouse, please reference the end of this document.)
Widow(er) Tips
You can’t please everyone. This can be a really sensitive time for everyone, and although it is sometimes hard to see past our own grief, we have to remind ourselves that we’re not the only person who has suffered a loss. If you want to have more control over your situation, co
nsider these options:
1.If your spouse is being cremated, consider splitting the ashes between yourself and your in-laws. That way, you can do whatever you wish with yours without worrying about pleasing them.
2.If you suddenly see the funeral getting out of control and know that this is not something you want to participate in or that your spouse would have been happy with, consider letting others in your family do what they wish for a memorial service…and then plan something on your own with close friends (a party, a trip, or an intimate gathering) to remember him or her on your own terms.
Just remember that a lot of relationships change after a loss, and it’s partially up to you how things end up, something that’s hard for everyone to remember in the throes of grief.
Coping/Changes
an all-inclusive trip to the island of crazy
Tips for Supporters
Don’t leave us hanging. We are bombarded with support the first two weeks after our spouses die, but then everything gets quiet when everyone leaves. Can’t come to the funeral? Tell your friend that you’re planning a trip to see her the month after. It will give her something to look forward to. Throwing a party? Ask your widowed friend. She may decline fifty times, but it could be the fifty-first time that you ask when she really feels up to it.
Call her. Even if she doesn’t answer or call you back right away, I promise that she appreciates your effort. Don’t give up.
Changes. Remember that your widowed friend is experiencing changes at such a rapid pace that she can barely keep up. And many times, when she talks to you about them, she’s not asking for your approval; she’s asking for your support. (Those are two very different things.) The best thing you can do is help her talk through what is going on in a nonjudgmental way.
Confessions of a Mediocre Widow Page 30