Getting through grief with a little help from my friends

Lately I have been so off kilter. Blaming it on the delayed warm weather but I really know it is my other reason. The reason that I continue to write. I am finding out that the grieving process is a long and arduous task. Nancy, my friend has used the word THROUGH to describe the process of getting to the other side of grief. I am wishing it was somehow easier to do. But, now I understand what she was talking about, helping me through, praying me through, etc. There are no shortcuts. There are ups and downs of emotions and thoughts. But it is a one way street and the path is not always easy to see. Somehow, someday I will be THROUGH this period of grief. Yet, I believe I will only be on the other side,looking back at a reflection of who I am at that moment, remembering who I was then.

I met yesterday with a friend of mine. Almost weekly I have met with a friend or new acquaintance that is also in the same boat I am in. She is alone, not on her own choosing, but rather because her spouse has also died. I am finding their company comforting. We understand one another. It is almost like we speak the same foreign language. We spent time comparing notes. The part that is the most difficult to comprehend is the total aloneness we both feel. The silent emptiness of our homes. The feeling that a part of our own bodies are no longer there. My empathy grows daily for all of the women I have known throughout my life who lost their spouse. This includes my grandma, my aunts and many family friends of my parents. I sense their feelings so much more deeply now.

The tears come at the most inconvenient times. The sadness covers me, and I find myself yearning for it to lift... to get out of the fog... to brighter days. I have acquired a new technique of pinching myself. When I feel myself getting sad enough to cry in front of people, I will pinch the back of my hand hard. If I feel the pain of the pinch, perhaps I won't sob in front of the person. Maybe, I will just shed one tear. It does seem to work. I find I am even conscious that my eyes didn't spill out a tear. Maybe I will just have to blow my nose one time. That won't be as bad as seeing a tear. All of these new activities I am adapting to make my presence more acceptable in front of others. To make their life easier!

Who am I? Who are we, the widows who were a part of a marriage? I don't belong to my husband's family anymore. I really felt this at Easter. Decisions that I had once been a part of now feel foreign. I don't have any legal representation in that life anymore. It is really nothing that anyone has said or done, it just is. Being no longer married seems odd. I didn't choose to not be married anymore. I can no longer check the married box, I now check the widowed box. All of the things that were so important to me have evaporated into thin air. The uncomfortableness of family gatherings. Should one talk about the deceased or not? I wanted to talk, but didn't feel like others did. What does one talk to the widow about then? The weather is a good subject, safe for a while. I brought up that I was going to use the "grief card" in dealing with a business question. A chuckle from a family member made me realize how silly or odd that must have sounded.


I have always been a strong proponent in giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Many times, my mantra has been. "I have not walked in their shoes, I don't know what it must be like to be them. So, therefore I can not judge them for how they do things." So, it is with widows, my IN crowd. I have decided I am giving any and all women left alone not of their own choosing the huge benefit of just being who they are without trying to fix them, to judge them or to understand them. But rather to allow them a FREE PASS THROUGH their moments of now.

My friend, Judy said she feels most comfortable around her grandchildren. That she feels most like herself. That person she used to be when her husband was alive. What is it about children that bring out the soothing balm of easier times in life? I am so eager to become a grandma. I know that this new baby is going to be such "GOOD GRIEF" THERAPY for me. Maybe tomorrow I will feel more like myself. But, then again, who is myself now? That is the question of the day.


Deb