A Smiling Young Widow

I went to the dentist. A good, normal life thing for me to do. My friendly hygienist was just back from mat leave. As we walked to the chair we were chatting about her baby and how returning to work was going. Then she asks me, “Anyways, how was your last year?” Uhhhhh… I hesitate. “Well honestly I’ve had better. My husband died in April.” Little questions like this. Moments where I run into someone I haven’t seen since Tom died, or I meet someone new. Something catches in my throat, there’s a split second where I have to decide whether I am going to just play it cool and pretend things are all good, or if I give up a bit of my story. Am I going to drop the big downer on this conversation? 

I had signed up for pottery classes in the fall and went almost as if life was normal. I was certainly a quieter and less friendly version of my old self, but on some level it was kinda nice to be able to almost pretend like life was ok. Like I was just another one of the participants making small talk about regular day-to-day things. Multiple times on my way home from class I’d breakdown. I need to take breaks from the grief, but that facade can only last so long. Life is not normal. If Tom was alive I would always call him on my way home from something, debriefing on what we’d each been up to that evening when he was away for work. The absence of a phone call I should be able to make looms still almost anytime I get into the car alone. 

Completing paperwork is rough now. There’s the blank to list an emergency contact. That still sucks. And man we seem to need emergency contacts for everything these days I swear! Last week I was filling out a form with the question, “Do you have a spouse?” and the options were yes or no. Uhh. I think I prefer the crappy feeling of checking-off widowed to checking-off no. I still very much feel I have a husband. Tom loved to share jokes that an 80 year old man should be telling. Like his go to “I haven’t talked to my wife in over a year….. yeah, I didn’t want to interrupt her”. Or he’d joke around, introducing himself to people as my first husband. That hits really different now. 

Tom still is a huge part of my life and forever will be. Absolutely we should speak openly about our loved ones who’ve died. I read a quote about being the “memory keeper of a life” now. I love love love telling and hearing stories of my Tom. However, it’s not easy to navigate that as I return to some “normal life things”. I’m always thinking of Tom. To talk with people that haven’t been a part of this grief journey already is a whole other challenge though. 

I’ve been in a few settings where not everyone knows my story. Friendly people making casual conversation. It feels kind of like normal life until a story gets caught in my throat. Like someone was offering sparkling water to a group. The person next to me says oh no thanks, I have my water bottle. I ask her are you not a sparkling water person? Usually this is where I insert one of my go-to stories about how my husband is passionately disgusted by it. How one time he accidentally ordered carbonated water when we were traveling and he took a sip – Tom’s quick Spanish lesson in con vs sin gas. How he said he’d be in a desert with no other options and still not drink sparkling water. (As I type this, how ridiculous that I have a go-to story about sparkling water!? Tom would 100% make fun of this, but I guess an example of how even the little mundane things in life are so linked into memories of him.)  

That time I didn’t tell the story. I was caught wondering how I should tell it now. My husband hates? My husband hated? If I use past-tense am I ready for questions? But if I use present tense what kind of follow-up comes? If I say he died there’s often the “oh but you’re so young” or questions about what happened. Can I handle this conversation in a public place right now? 

I’ve had some other instances since then where I have told Tom stories to people I’ve just met, or been able to share “actually my husband died”. I go back to the idea of taking charge of my grief, deciding when I want to open up and how to talk about Tom with people that didn’t know him or us. I have to find my way through these experiences I guess. Figure out what feels ok. There’s times too where I’m just not up for it, too much energy to try to socialize.

Some people, perhaps with kind intentions, have suggested getting back to “normal life” will help with grief. You know the ol idea of how we can “get over it”. Let’s just fix this problem. How nice that must be to have a normal life to return to, my inside voice says. My normal life has been shattered. Trying to do any “normal life things” is actually a huge exhausting undertaking. Every little thing is intertwined with the life Tom and I were living. There’s a sort of reintegrating into the world that has to happen.

“There are losses that rearrange the world. Deaths that change the way you see everything, grief that tears everything down. Pain that transports you to an entirely different universe, even while everyone else thinks nothing has really changed.”

Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK