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.

Case of the "Guilts", maybe?


Since writing all this down is to try to identify the triggers and circumstances that cause me to waiver in my resolve not to let grief swallow me, I have been analyzing what keeps happening to thwart my good intentions. I think I have nailed it down to having a deep case of the "guilts".  Every time I start to feel like I am ready to start building a life on my own, it feels like I am leaving Dave behind, like I have abandoned him.  I know that may sound a little off kilter to most people but I am sure that many of my widowed friends know exactly what I am talking about. Overcoming that is something that I am just going to have to work harder on, especially in the immediate future.

My rational self has told me that I probably am going to be around for at least another 30-35 years (wow! that is something sobering, to put a time limit on how much life you have left to live...that should be enough to kick start me into some kind of positive action) and that I can't sit around the house, mourning for the rest of my life. Or can I?  There are any number of tragic heroines in history and literature who have done just that. And we glorify them and what they sacrifice for their love. I know how destructive that is because even in fiction there is never a good outcome for those women. They end up wasting their lives, accomplishing next to nothing except to be the subject of a tragic story. No wonder we are all confused about what love is supposed to be.

Of course, I know what true love is. True love is joy and happiness, abundance and life.  Why do I keep forgetting that?  Why can I not remember how much I loved and was loved and revel in that? To have been granted such a gift, to be madly, truly, completely loved, to experience what so many people can only dream about. Why can't I remember that, instead of only being able to think about the loss of that love? My biggest hurdle in this journey is to get past the devastation of that loss and return to the the living.

I do know that I don't want to end up the center of one of a tragic story so I guess that is at least a start, to recognize that being caught up in negativity is unhealthy and irrational. Hmmmmm.  Looks like I really do have my work cut out for me.