Confessions of A Mediocre Widow By Catherine Tidd

The title of Catherine Tidd's new book suggests she is a mediocre widow.

 

Don't believe it for one second.

Catherine Tidd is quite the opposite.  Catherine Tidd is in fact a courageous, smart and very funny woman in search of herself and an entirely different life while raising three young children after the death of her beloved husband, Brad, in a tragic motorcycle accident in 2007.

Her book is refreshing and down-to-earth and is full of painful and funny personal insights about what happened to her after the death of her spouse: the hospital, the funeral, her in-laws, the whole crazy upside down aspect of picking yourself up and putting yourself back together.  As a widow myself, I truly understand the tightrope walk of processing grief, raising a child, working a full-time job all the while trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen next in this so-called uncharted territory called a new life. 

 

 

Putting those intensely private and sometimes heartbreaking experiences down on paper for others to consider and understand is a difficult task but not for Catherine Tidd.  She has written an amazing book that I couldn't put down and I would recommend to anyone whether they have lost a spouse or not because she is straightforward yet humorous (my husband is dead and Keith Richards is alive?) about how her new life unfolded in the months and years following her husband's death. 

 

Many times while reading, "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow Or, How I Lost My Husband And My Sanity," I found myself putting the book down and saying out loud, "Yes! That's exactly right Catherine.  Yes! You nailed what it feels like at that particular stage of grief."

 

I have to reveal that I was familiar with Catherine's sense of humor before I read her book.  Her uplifting blog, "Widow Chick," (www.widowchick.blogspot.com) was the first blog about grief that I discovered online.  Right away I loved the name of her blog and read every post, sometimes laughing at the things she vented about and sometimes shaking my head in agreement with her about the emotional push and pull of navigating single parenting, anniversaries, birthdays, and the dating scene.

 

But her new book is chock full of more Catherine and it has given her the time and space to expand on how loss affects you and those who care about you and to really dig deep into a discussion of life on your own as a widow with children, a subject that tends to make most people feel very uncomfortable.

 

Catherine Tidd



Here is how Catherine explains what she wanted to have happen to her in the midst of dealing with her overwhelming grief: "I wanted to  walk into a padded room and throw the grocery list, the bills, the back-to-school forms, the insurance paperwork, just chuck 'em at a wall over and over until the paper was crumpled and soft.  I wanted to scream until my throat was raw.  I wanted to kick at those padded walls until my legs were sore.  I wanted to pull an Office Space and take a baseball bat to every appliance in my house that had the nerve not to work properly.  And sometimes I wanted to take my emotions out on an innocent teddy bear."

Catherine also writes about using retail therapy as a way of coping with the loneliness and isolation following her husband's sudden death.  She would buy tons of stuff, decide to keep one thing and then return the rest the next day.  This didn't make her very popular with the salespeople and her therapy went on for months until she got fixated on a new purchase: a Mazda RX8.  As in a car that doesn't have a back seat, is low to the ground and not child friendly at all.  I loved that she did this even though it was extravagant.

Here in Catherine's words are why the Mazda RX8 was such a necessary, yet temporary, purchase: "For a while, that car was the best therapy I could have had.  It was where I could go and just pretend for a minute that my life was not actually happening.  I could drive around and forget for seconds at a time that I had three kids at home who were in the throes of toddlerhood.  I felt empowered that I had bought that car completely on my own.  I would listen to music I liked, turning it up so loud that it would almost drown out the thoughts in my head.  And the tinted windows would show nothing at a stoplight if I just needed to sit there and cry for a minute."

Even though Catherine spent her 11th wedding anniversary planning her husband's funeral, she found the inner strength to move her life forward and "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow" is a candid book about the reality of becoming a widow and where the exhausting, emotional adjustments took her and her family.

The bottom line, Catherine writes, is the ability to become self-aware and realize that it doesn't matter whether other people understand your journey or not.  You will find the way that is best for you.  It may be a slow process but inner peace can come if you accept what your life is today.  She states a core truth about being a widow when she writes that there comes a point in every widow's journey when she has to make peace with the death of her loved one "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."

Thank you Catherine Tidd for sharing your heartfelt story in this beauty of a book, "Confessions of A Mediocre Widow."  You made me feel as though we were friends in this widow journey and I know your new book will help many others (widows or not)  understand that you have to put yourself out there and live life with as much love as you can find.

 

"Confessions of A Mediocre Widow" will be available in retail stores on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.  Copies can be ordered on Amazon.com at this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Mediocre-Widow-Husband-Sanity/dp/1402285221/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387507432&sr=8-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+mediocre+widow

 

or at Barnes & Noble at this link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/confessions-of-a-mediocre-widow-catherine-tidd/1114864435?ean=9781402285226

My Baby Doesn't Want This Letter

You can file the following under silly, sad, ridiculous or just plain ole unnecessary and inefficient.

 

I came home from work yesterday and, as I usually do, picked up the mail from the door slot and started going through it.  Monday's mail is usually thin and this time it was no exception.  A few real estate solicitation cards, a catalogue and even a letter from a friend.

But there was also a curious piece of mail addressed to my husband.  My husband who died nine years ago.  My husband whose name I would think at this point would show up on business records as deceased.

 

So I opened it up to see what this letter was all about.  A refinancing company, who I must say is really out of it, was writing to inform my husband that he was pre-approved for refinancing our house and the company even assigned him a case ID number.  Hilarious right?

 

I thought the best part of the letter was when the company said that my husband was one of the lucky ones to receive this pre-approval status for refinancing because the company had done a careful review of his financial records and it showed that his credit was in great shape.

 

I guess so since he has no debt since he hasn't spent any money in the last nine years . . . at least none that I know about!

 

Thanks CashCall, Inc. and thanks to your Mortgage Division for giving me a giggle today!

 

You just never know what the mail will bring you, do you?

Widow Chick

I don't know the woman who writes the amazing blog called "Widow Chick" but I feel as if I do.

 

She (aka Catherine) is to-the-core honest and humorous in writing about her daily travels as a widow and a woman who is trying to be Mom and Dad to three young children.  I regularly read her blog and it always gives me a boost!

Widow Chick's Husband

 

Yesterday she wrote a particularly touching post about an important anniversary in her life and I would like to share it with you because she is right on point in expressing her thoughts and feelings about what happened.

 

Please read this link which will take you to Widow Chick's blog post:

http://widowchick.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-6th-anniversary-to-yall-its-just.html

God bless you Widow Chick!

Tossing Emotional Baggage

A spilled box of cereal this weekend took me through an unexpected, yet healthy exercise.

 

While trying to do too many things at the same time in the kitchen, I spilled a box of cereal inside one of my kitchen cabinets.  Don't you hate it when that happens?

 

It was such a klutzy move and right away I was annoyed with myself.  I looked at the shelf with the cereal spilled everywhere inside the cabinet and knew I was going to have to take everything out and vacuum the shelf.  Damn! What a pain!

 

I knew the sooner I started the sooner it would be over.  While muttering to myself, one by one I pulled all the items from their shelves and put them on the counter and on the floor.  Of course, you know what happened next.  One cabinet led to another cabinet and before I knew it, I had a full fledged kitchen project going of vacuuming the shelves, throwing out expired stuff and relining the shelves.

 

But in the process of cleaning, I came upon an old yet distinctive jar of Ovaltine.

 

 

There's only one person in my family who used to drink Ovaltine and that person was my husband, who is no longer with us.  Sad to say and embarrassed to admit, but that jar of chocolatey malted powder has sat there in the back of the cabinet for almost nine years.  I know.  Nine. Years.

 

I would see the jar but not really see the jar if you know what I mean.  There were times when I would scold myself and say "This is ridiculous!  Why are you holding on to this Ovaltine?"  But there was something about it and I couldn't bring myself to toss it in the trash can.  It just reminded me of him so much.  It was his thing.  And no, I did not open the jar.  God knows what I would have seen!

 

You know how they say that deciding what to give away and what to keep is a hard process when going through a loved one's belongs after they have died?  Well, that is true but in this case I think I went too far.  It was only a jar of Ovaltine and yet it sat there for ages.  I guess it was a reminder to me of my husband and it didn't seem like a big deal to keep it in the cabinet.

 

But I did hold the jar in my hand for a long time before I threw it away.  I allowed myself to go backwards in time, to a time when we went grocery shopping together and he would always throw a jar of Ovaltine into the cart, a time when he would mix the Ovaltine into a tall glass of cold milk and talk about delicious it was, to a time when Ovaltine was supposed to make him feel better when he was sick.

 

Who knows why I was ready to throw the Ovaltine away on Saturday!  Maybe it was because I was throwing other stuff away and felt like I was on a roll to declutter or maybe I was just ready to see it for what it was: an old jar of Ovaltine.

 

I surprised myself by my inability to let go of such a simple item.  Some things that belonged to my husband I very easily discarded, donated or threw away.  Just because the jar is gone doesn't mean I threw away the memories too.

 

Parents Are Human Too

While celebrating my son's birthday recently, he asked me once again what it was like the day he was born.

 

I think every child likes to reminisce about the day of their birth and what everyone was doing as they were arriving into the world.  His questions about how long I was in labor, what was happening in the hospital and what Daddy was doing were expected.

 

But that conversation evolved into a bittersweet conversation about his Dad and some of the frustrating health issues he had before his death.  His Dad (my husband) was diabetic and injected insulin.  He was not overweight.  He developed diabetes later in life and controlled his diabetes with pills for a number of years but then was hospitalized with acute pneumonia which caused his sugar levels to go out of control.  Injecting insulin was the only way the doctors could stabilize his sugar count.

 

Too put it mildly, diabetes and my husband were not a good match at all.  I know of two people who are diabetic and both inject insulin.  They are religious about checking their blood sugar, eating well and exercising on a regular basis.  These were not things my husband did on a regular basis or even wanted to do daily.

 

His pills would sit on the table, he would go for hours without testing his blood sugar, he would eat desserts and he would drink alcohol.  Don't get me wrong.  I loved my husband desperately but there were times when I felt I was fighting harder for his health than he was.  I will give him credit for the efforts that he did make for short periods of time when he would try to change his habits but then it would become too much and he would let it all slide again.

 

 

Our son remembers the arguments about diet and exercise and medicine and I know that this created anxiety.  I don't particularly enjoy answering these questions from my son but I'm also not going to hide the truth from him and run away from the reality of our situation.  Going back in our memories to those times is painful and we truly tried to make things easier for him because we knew he was sick but in the end it wasn't enough.

 

It is very hard to explain to a child that their parent is not all that they think they are or want them to be.  You want to think and talk only about the good times but that's not life.  We have to learn to take the good with the bad. 

We're all human.  We make mistakes.  Our hearts are in the right place and so are our intentions but we don't always carry through on our goals.  I've had my share of screw-ups but I'm still here so my son can argue with me when he is annoyed or angry at something I've done.  His Dad isn't here and he can't talk to him or confront him with his issues and that creates pain and sometimes anger.

Give yourself and others permission to feel and talk about these conflicted emotions.  In the end, I think it's okay to love someone but still be angry at them for some of the choices they made while they were with you. 

It's their actions that we don't like because our love for the person is still there.  Always.

Making A New Bedroom

On the weekends, I like to try and organize myself.

Sometimes I succeed in my de-clutter efforts and sometimes I don't.  During the work week, I have a very bad habit of throwing clothes and papers into piles.  By the time the weekend rolls around, I know I have to deal with the piles and hang stuff up and throw things away.

 

This past weekend marked a milestone for me because I just had my bedroom painted and most of the stuff that was under my bed,  hanging on wall and door hooks and on top of my furniture was in another room.

Just typing that sentence is a big deal.  It's my bedroom; not our bedroom.  I am taking a big leap by changing the room and making it look different than it did when my husband was alive.  Not that the room looked all that great when my husband was alive but it was ours and it was comfortable.

 

This was my opportunity to practice what I am always writing about: to embrace your life and move forward.

I was going to paint the room myself last summer but something always seemed to happen and I never got around to it.  Other rooms in the house have changed since my husband's death but this one has remained essentially the same.  I enter the room but I never really look at it or spend any time in it.  I usually go to my bedroom when it's time to sleep or change my clothes but I don't go there to hang out and say, read a book, or talk on the phone because there are too many memories there.

 

Now, nine years later, after all this time, I finally realized I had to make it a different room.  Otherwise, it would always be "our" room and that would be rather silly since my husband died.  I didn't even put any of my clothes in the drawers on the other side of the bureau because those once belonged to him.  It didn't feel right putting my things in his drawers.  But last year, I slowly started taking over all the drawers (it felt weird at first) and I must admit I am thankful for the extra space.

It was a gradual decision to change the room.  Over the past year, I found it was getting be a real downer to be in the room because here I was trying hard to rebuild my life and move forward yet when I came into my bedroom it was stuck in time.  I had flashbacks to our time together and I loved the memories, yet I knew that I would still have the memories even if I painted the room, bought a new bedspread and pillows and moved the furniture around.

Of course, this didn't come to me all at once.  It took awhile for me to push myself to do this.

Even though it was hard to do, I am now glad, and actually sort of relieved, that I am changing my bedroom because now it feels fresh and renewed.  It's okay to give yourself as much time as you need to feel comfortable with whatever changes you make in your life after you lose a loved one.  You know how it feels and you know when you are ready to think about your life in a different way.

It's not sad to change.   It just means that I am taking what has happened to me and learning how to blend it into my present life in a positive way.  I'm not leaving my husband behind because that's not possible. 

But I've come to the point where I realize it's okay to make new memories for myself.
 

Widows Fighting For Their Homes

Protect Your Property

 

Every woman needs to read this New York Times story (see link below).

 

Whether you are 18 or 81-years-old, single, married or widowed, every woman needs to know the financial facts about owning her own home.  Don't think that someone is going to go out of their way to explain it to you.  Find out about home ownership for yourself in order to protect yourself and the biggest investment of your life -- your home.

 

When my husband died, both of our names were on the mortgage.  I was lucky but I could easily have been one of these women in the New York Times story.  My husband had been ill and in and out of hospitals for about two and a half years before he died.  I remember a particularly poignant memory when my husband ended up in the emergency room and the doctors thought he was going to die that day.  One of the doctors asked me in a tone I will never forget if I had power of attorney.  I didn't.  I had never thought about it.

 

Really.

But I quickly got a lawyer to give it to me.

 

It was from that day forward that I saw I needed to be proactive about our property and finances.  I was working full-time and made sure from that time forward that I could pay the mortgage.  I felt very alone in that time and particularly vulnerable because I felt the financial weight as well as the responsibility for my husband and young son.

I knew I could pay the mortgage but that also was a lot of stress to handle.  Sadly, I know a few women who had to sell their houses after their husbands' deaths and it is not a pretty process.

 

It's already hard enough when you have to deal with the emotional minefield of grieving but to then find yourself in the throes of fighting to keep a roof over your head is just incomprehensible.  I remember the surreal and out-of-body feeling of planning my husband's funeral, trying to take care of our child and having no enthusiasm or energy to do any of it.  I can't imagine to then be expected to put all that turmoil aside and then focus on proving that the house I have been living in is legally mine.

 

I'm not sure why two people would buy a house and list only one person's name on the morgage but apparently this happens all the time and now we are finding out that the so-called gap in paperwork is creating a crisis for widowed women who are in their fifties and older.

 

If you have a mortgage, please make sure you are listed on it with your husband or partner.  Unfortunately, mortgage companies take a "business is business" attitude and don't let feelings of compassion or sympathy enter into their decisions about home foreclosures.

 

Here is the compelling New York Times story:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/business/widows-pushed-into-foreclosure-by-mortgage-fine-print.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121202&_r=0

It's Not What You Think

  

 

 

 

To show you how little I knew about loss, I thought that the first year after my husband's death was going to be the hardest time that I would ever have to experience.  My thinking was something along the lines of  "If I can get the first year under my belt, then each year after that will become easier to handle."  Right?

Guess what? Not. Always. True.

Grief is always full of surprises and just when you think you have it under control, you don't.

The first year was so raw with emotion for me and such a blur of just getting through the 365 days of it, that the whole idea of my husband's death, the finality of it, didn't really and truly sink in at all. I thought about it, cried about it, read about it and even went to a support group for it but it still was a concept that danced all over the place and didn't settle in.

But the second year was different.  For me, the second year was harder than the first because it painfully confirmed for me over and over again that he wasn't coming back.  Ever.  That this was it and it's not like he's gone on a very long trip.  And then the second year also forced me to stop playing all those mind games with myself and face up to my new life. 

But what happened to me may not happen to you.

I know it sounds like a cliche, but it's still so true: everyone has their own grief journey to travel and no two journeys are the same.  There is no right way or wrong way to grieve.  There is only your way.

I'm not making this up.  It's really true.  Your reactions and experience with grief may be very different from mine and it's totally okay and normal.  It's normal because our relationships are different, our experiences are different, our emotional DNA is different, our religious beliefs are different and our expectations from life and the person we lost are different.

Unfortunately, no one prepares us for those differences. We may watch someone we know experience grief and we think that person's experience will be ours too.  But that isn't always the case.  I lost a husband.  Someone else may have tragically experienced the death of a child or a wife or a friend or a parent.

As much as we may want one and search for one, life does not provide us with a guide book on how we should grieve.  We all process pain and loss differently. 

We grieve because we love.  It is because we love that we grieve.  We care and we emotionally connect to other people and when that person is taken away, it is a shock that can take a long time to process.  On the surface, you are handling things, you take care of daily responsibilities and you go through life automatically.

 

But underneath, you may be a mess.

By the third and fourth year of grief, you think it's going to be so much better and sometimes it is.  I have two friends, they live in completely different cities, they don't know each other, they are different ages and both have lost spouses.  The woman has children and grandchildren and lost her husband suddenly in a tragic car accident.  The man has no children and nursed his wife through a lengthy illness until she died.

 

Both have told me they are surprised by the fact that they continue to grieve during their fourth year of loss.  They are active, positive people trying to change and rebuild their lives because both of them socialize, take classes and work.  They meet a lot of people but nothing has ever clicked.

So they forge forward, as I and others do, together, trusting that time will heal us as we journey to renewal and new opportunities.

It's what we know and we keep doing it until it gets better. 

 

 

A Widow's New Chapter

Photo By Flickr

Dating -- whether single, widowed or divorced -- is a definite roll of the dice.  But if you hit and find your match, it's a gambler's dream come true! 

 

That is why I think the author of the following story was brave to write about getting back into the high-stakes mating game and answering the questions we would want to ask her if we knew her.  She is honest and direct in the telling of her story and that's why you want to keep reading.

 

The questions posed here by the author are the ones that people (myself included) definitely do wonder about.  It's a very interesting read because you might think you know the answers to these questions but I think you'll be surprised by some of her thoughts.

A Widow Answers The Questions You’re Too Polite To Ask

Posted By Hello Grief on August 21, 2012

By Emily Clark, Guest Blogger

I wipe my slick palms against the thigh of my jeans, gnawing nervously on my thumb's shredded hang nail.  I slide my laptop over and pace.  Force myself to stop.  Then pace more.  I check the time on the wall clock.  I check the time on my watch.  I check the time on my phone.  I sit back down, slide my laptop over, hit refresh.

I am waiting for the proverbial poop to hit the fan.

Why?

I’ve just done something I never thought I’d do. Again.

I changed my relationship status on Facebook to “Engaged”.

In a world of social media and worldwide gossip, neighbours no longer need to walk three miles to gossip about the love life of the local widow. They can simply spy through the blinds across the street or stalk her house at all hours of the night pretending they were “just stopping by to say hi”. Or better yet, they sit in the comfort of their own home, surf the web, and hunt you through your status updates and Facebook photos you get tagged in.

In an effort to save everyone the trouble (not to mention the awkward moments when I bust you peering through my kitchen window at the back of my house), I’ve decided to put it all out there for everyone to see.

Yes, I am dating again.

Yes, he sleeps over.

Yes, that was us in the Dominican, frolicking on the beach.

Yes, he asked me to marry him.

While I’d like to believe the best in everyone, that they are merely looking out for me, I am not so naive. I do know, however, that the gossips will gossip and that while I am a grown woman who answers only to me, it is sometimes less work to be blunt.

So for all of you aching to know and just too socially conscious, respectful, kind, scared to ask, I will now attempt to answer all those taboo questions with as much honesty as I can muster.

What’s it like to date again after you are widowed?

Awkward. Super awkward. Like many widows out there, I was out of the dating game for a long, long time. And, to be frank, I had zero interest in ever being in it again. I met my late husband, Craig, when I was just 15. We’d been together our entire lives. I bypassed the entire “dating” phase of life and essentially went straight from high school to married so learning to cope with members of the opposite sex in a dating situation was beyond my comprehension at first. I fumbled, made some mistakes, and, yes, had some fun too. In the end, it took some time and some sexy new bras to get me enjoying it instead of dreading it.

Don’t you think it’s kind of soon to start dating?
This is probably the question every widow will hear some variation of at some point or another. Either that or “don’t you think it’s about time you started to date?” The point here is that everyone out there, especially those who don’t know what they are talking about, has an opinion on this. Ultimately, every widow is different and the only person whose opinion matters is her own. Some widows are comfortable dating as early as a month or two out, others wait years, and some never date again at all. This is a personal choice that each widow must make for herself. I did sweat a little over starting to date after only a couple months. Not because I didn’t feel ready, but because I was sick with worry over what others might think. In the end it was the right choice for me. A very wise widow once told me, “I fulfilled every marriage vow right until death do us part – can others say the same?” Whenever I got flack from outsiders, I would silently chant this to myself. Mostly to keep from yelling it at them.

Did your in-laws freak out about you dating?
Surprisingly, no, they did not. In fact, they were pretty cool about it. I was very up front with them and told them how I felt and what was going on. Of course I waited several months to make sure it was more of a serious relationship before I opened up to them. I also brought up the general topic of potentially dating and shared with them how I felt several times leading up to the big announcement. When I did tell them, I opted for a well thought out email rather than telling them in person so they could digest it without having to worry about me seeing how they reacted. They even made the time to meet the new boyfriend and have dinner with us. Every situation is different and I would emphasize that not all in-laws are the same. Having kids can add a whole other dimension to this one and since Craig and I didn’t have any, I can’t speak to that situation directly.

What did you do with all of your husband’s stuff?
At first, nothing. I left the pictures up all over the house, I kept his wedding ring in my jewellery box, I carried his love letters in my purse. To me, this was a part of my life and part of who I was (and still am). Why should I have to change that for someone else? For some reason, my boyfriend wasn’t too bothered and months later as things began to get more serious I began to phase some of my late husband’s things out of obvious display, more out of respect for my new boyfriend than anything else. My new boyfriend is now my new husband and I don’t keep pictures of Craig up in our new home except for one in my office, tucked beside my computer monitor where I do my writing. I still kept some of Craig’s clothes (now integrated into my own wardrobe) and several boxes of his awards, comic books, and other memorabilia. These live in my office closet where I can take them out and look at them whenever I feel the need.

Did you take your wedding rings off before you started dating?
No. Not quite. I took off my wedding rings many times over. Somehow they always ended up finding their way back onto my left hand. I loved them so much it was beyond painful to lock them away in a jewellery box where I’d never see them, never get to enjoy them for what they were – a beautiful gift from my loving husband. It took me months and months to remove them permanently and in the end I opted to have them remade into a custom ring I could wear on my right hand so I’d always have that little piece of who I was before to carry with me as who I am now.

Have you ever called him by your late husband’s name?
Only once, entirely by accident. And not for anything special – just asking him to bring the laundry upstairs. Hey, it happens. Fortunately he had a good sense of humour about it (and a short memory). This was always a big fear of mine, something I sweated about for weeks leading up to our wedding. I envisioned all sorts of horrible scenarios in front of a church full of people, melting into a gooey puddle of shame after blurting out the wrong name (instead I called myself by my new husband’s name… which was funny and only slightly less embarrassing). Sadly, the name switch up is just part of being widowed. You can’t love someone all your life, whispering their name out loud and in your thoughts a thousand times a day without inevitably letting it slip out. It happens. It did, however, make me more forgiving of my poor mother who was constantly trying to keep her five kids’ names straight.

Do you ever think about your husband when you are with him?
Not during very private moments, if that is what you are getting at. Before I started dating that was something I did worry about though. Sometimes my new husband says the odd thing that will remind me of Craig or I’ll hear a song on the radio while we are driving in the car that will make me tear up. Fact is, my new husband is my should to cry on and the one I’ve vented to, talked to, and poured my heart out to through this whole ordeal so the subject of widowhood and my late husband is one we are both comfortable with. If he wasn’t ok with it, I doubt we’d have lasted long at all.

Do you now feel like everything happens for a reason?
No, and this is probably my least favorite question. It actually makes my skin crawl whenever somebody asks this one. It’s as though they are saying, maybe your husband died so that you could meet this new man and live happily ever after.

 

Here’s the thing. And let me say this as carefully as possible. I was living happily ever after before. I loved Craig. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together, have babies, and eventually sit on our rockers on the front porch, muttering about the kids these days. Then he died. In a horrible, tragic, unlucky collision. Wrong place at just the wrong moment. I don’t believe it was for a reason or his time to go or any of those things. Then, in a terrible and miserable time of my life, I was lucky enough to find a wonderful man who made me laugh and listened patiently to all my crazy ranting. From this I have surmised that sometimes bad things just happen. For no reason. And there is nothing you can do about it. Just because something good eventually follows does not mean that one leads to the other. The line of thought that my first husband’s death was simply for the sake of my new relationship is a very dangerous line of thought – one that diminishes my first husband’s life and our relationship. Something I’d never be down with.

Did you pick someone who is like your husband?
Not really, although they both have a lot of facial hair. Is that a type? Perhaps that’s my type. They are both very different and that’s one of the things I like about each of them. They are each unique and special to me in different ways and I cherish both relationships and everything they have brought to my life.

How do you pick who gets which side of the bed?
Like all normal couples do – we fight like cats and dogs, battling it out by stealing blankets, racing to bed, and throwing pillows across the room until someone gets their way. Usually me. Okay, always me. It’s not so much that I prefer the left side or the right side. More like the side furthest from the door. In case of robbers and home invaders or aliens. Everyone knows the person on the furthest side is safe.

Oh and, yes, in case you were wondering, my darling husband reads everything I write, corrects my typos, laughs with me, lets me cry on his shoulder, and is the second chapter I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have. After a very scary and heartbreaking time in my life, one I thought would never end, I have finally managed to set myself back on my own two feet to walk hand-in-hand with a wonderful (and very attractive) new friend.

You can read more of Emily’s journey through young widowhood on her blog. ^[1]

Bella Donna Summer

Talk about someone providing the music of your life.

For me, that would definitely be Donna Summer.

Bad Girls...Hot Stuff...Heaven Knows...On the Radio...Dim All The Lights.

Crank up the jukebox and turn on the disco ball because I can trace boyfriends, Friday night after work blowouts and dancing with my husband to the music of Donna Summer who won five Grammy Awards!  The very last song we played at our wedding reception was "Last Dance."  Summer's music made you feel as though you could dance forever and I think she brought out a little discomania in all of us.

Sadly and too soon, Summer, 63, died yesterday from lung cancer at her home in Florida.

In a 2003 interview with the New York Times, this is what Summer said about her music: "In that period people were in a dance mood.  They wanted to be lifted up, they wanted to have fun, they didn't want to think.  You were coming out of the Vietnam War, the 60's, the protest era, and I was coming out of it as well," she added.  "I think people were just in a different mindset.  When dance music came out with that beat and that movement, it was a switch"

Rest in peace, Donna Summer, for oh my goodness, you were the best!

Walking & Wandering

I was walking downtown the other day and started to think about what it would be like if I ran into my husband.  I know, I know.  There is no way that I am going to suddenly see my husband casually walking down K street or any other street near my office or my home but this is how your mind works sometimes after you have lost someone you love whether it's a spouse, a parent, a child or a friend.

Granted, my husband died eight years ago but sometimes when I'm walking my mind wanders and one thought leads to another and then I start to get thinking about things that happened years ago and then I just really want to see HIM; not his picture; or some mental image that I call up from memory.  But the real live person.  And even though I know that's not going to happen, for some reason my brain or my memory bank hasn't completely computed this concept of finality.

You probably are surprised that this whole "missing the person" thought process happens after all these years and I'm surprised too.   It used to happen a lot right after his death.  Now it comes and goes in a different way but it still catches me off guard.  Eight years is a long time and that seems like it would be enough time for your brain to wrap itself around this life changing loss don't you think?  I know you're nodding with me in agreement!

Oh well....I don't feel this way just about my husband.  Sadly, various friends and relatives have died over the last several years and every now and then I think of them and want to see them too.  The feeling of wanting to see my husband is stronger than the feelings I have about other people who have died but I think everyone reaches a point of thinking, "Okay you've been gone long enough.  When am I going to see you again?"

I think this may be one of the reasons why people find it hard to understand why you're not "over it."  It's because you don't get "over it."  It's not like the chicken pox or poison ivy.  You learn to live with it.  You learn to go with it.  You learn to put it in a mental box and lock it up for awhile and then bring it out every once in a while when you're feeling strong. 

The road to healing for me is winding and bumpy.  I know I am going in the right direction.  I am going forward with my life.  I am living my life, socializing, working, making plans but then a memory or a feeling will suddenly trigger my desire to see my husband.  Not my husband as he was when he was very sick but my husand the way he was when we first married.

I am always working on letting go of the way my life used to be because it is my life.  It's a life that I used to share with my husband but now that is gone and I work very hard all the time to push through to the other side of loss because you have to.  You have to accept and find balance.

But it's almost impossible to stop your brain from wandering.  

Go Giants!

NBC Sports

I'd like to give a big shout out to the New York Giants who yesterday defeated the San Francisco 49ers and now are going to the Super Bowl!!!!!

I know my husband is up there with a big smile on his face, celebrating in his own heavenly way.  It's funny how many text messages I received while watching the game commenting about his supposed involvement with the Giants as though he could make the game go one way or the other.  But once the championship game went into overtime, even I was shouting for him to do something to help the Giants win.

We all have our own ways of staying connected to our loved ones who have died and I will always connect the Giants to my husband.  There are times when I turn a Giants football game on just to bring back those memories of him shouting at the television and giving his own commentary.  He was a hardcore fan who took each game personally and when they lost there was nothing right with the world.

That's why I know that he is very happy right now.   My husband would always say that the Giants never made it easy to be a fan and yesterday's game proved his point.  The score was tied 17-17 as they went into overtime.  You wanted to watch but you couldn't watch.  The Super Bowl was on the line.  Then Lawrence Tynes kicked a 31-yard field goal almost eight minutes into overtime to give the Giants a 20-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the N.F.C. Championship game.

Go Blue!!!  Now we go to the Super Bowl to defeat the New England Patriots, a rematch of the Super Bowl four years ago.  As my husband would say, "May the best team win and you know what I mean!"

Two Special People

My thoughts today are filled with two special people whom I love very much.

One of them is in the hospital and is scheduled to have a surgical procedure today.  I wish I could be with her to hold her hand, tell her how special she is and how much she means to me and so many other people.  My prayers are with her as the doctors do their work to make her healthy again.

The other person, my husband, would have turned 80 years old today.  Happy Birthday O!  I know you are  in heaven  and I hope you're having a Boodles martini up with your birthday cake...or maybe it's a plum wine shooter with a creme caramel. . .

Holidays 101

This is to all of you who white-knuckled it through the holidays... After eight years, I know this for sure: you can make the holidays anything you want them to be. Only you know how much you can take of the 24-hour holiday music that follows you wherever you go, the marathon holiday parties and the general holly jolly holiday atmosphere.

This may sound simplistic but it's not.

 You need to give yourself permission to do what you think you can handle and nothing more.

You don't have to celebrate the holidays the way you did before your loved one died.

 There are no rules.

When my husband died in November of 2003, I was hit with a rapid succession of what are supposed to be celebrations: Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday and our wedding anniversary. They say that timing is everything and his death came at a particularly hard time of the year.

If I could have I would have gone away and traveled to some tropical place that wouldn't have reminded me of anything to do with those special days. But my son desperately wanted everything to remain the same so I whiteknuckled it and followed through on all the usual holiday rituals.

Eight years later, we have changed a few things and kept others. We come at the holidays from different places and now are more open to change. We have also come to the realization that the holidays are yours to define any way you want. And that's a truly merry thought.