On March 24, 2010, my husband died. It will have been 5 years in a short time and I have desperately tried to come to grips with what being a widow means in terms of how to go on with my life alone. It is like trying to put back together the pieces of a shattered mirror, one that reflects what used to be. Those pieces will cut you and make you bleed if you aren't very careful, but you have to try to make the pieces fit, so that you can see yourself again.

My life has changed. I live in new city, one where there were no nightmare memories. I have a good job, doing something that I love. I have old friends, new friends, good friends. And of course, I have my family, that I love more that I can say.

My life has changed, but I have changed, too. I am not, nor will I ever be, the person I was before March 24th, 2010. I wish that those people I hold so dear could understand what this life is like but unless you have lived it, that is impossible. Others can think that they understand but no one can, really, because it is so very different for all of us. What I write about what I feel hoping that someday even I will understand.


After feeling like I was starting to be able to get through a day without a water works show, things have turned around. I am back to feeling that lump in my throat all day long and that constant feeling of impending doom, like something awful is lurking around the corner.  It is unnerving and sometimes it makes me physically sick.  I have become quite a recluse lately because I just can't deal with having people feel sorry for the "crazy widow woman" and her up and down mood swings.

I know that people care very much how I am doing but it is nearly impossible to explain to them that I don't want sympathy, I don't want comforting.  I just want my husband and my old life back and I can't have that,  so there is NOTHING that anybody can do for me. I am stuck in limbo. No one to turn to, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.

I find that I am also losing patience with people. Even going to the grocery store is a trial lately.  I see people arguing with their kids, their spouses, the clerks behind the counters. Most of the time, I catch only snatches of what they are arguing about but I can say unequivocally that not a damned thing they are saying makes any difference in the end. It is all bullshit, junk talk, things that in the grand scheme of things don't make a rat's ass of difference. What happened to all the kindness in the world?  All I hear and see is meanness, unhappiness and complaining. Doesn't anybody care about anybody else anymore?

Get off the cell phone, pay attention to your kid, listen to what he is saying. If your spouse is having a bad day, for crying out loud, give him/her some sympathy. Put aside your little petty whatever and care about somebody else for ten minutes. You might actually feel good about it for a change, if you can stop thinking about yourself for that span of time.