A Smiling Young Widow

I sat at a table with three people I barely knew, just chatting. We’d been talking about pets when one of them shared, “I’d choose my dog over my husband any day – that’s really all you need in your life”. I had a moment in my head where I realized ohh she assumes I’m divorced like the other two ladies. I’d made some quick comment in the past-tense, like my husband always had a big beard in winter that I was jealous of for warmth. Usually I just stay quiet, not wanting to pull out my widow story with strangers and make people uncomfortable, but after awhile I couldn’t just sit there as this person continued on to list off negative things about her husband and marriage.  

I’m not interested in being a part of the “I hate men” club. I’m lucky enough to know how amazing life can be with the right partner. Of course it wasn’t always rainbows and unicorns, but together Tom and I crafted a life full of shared decisions and growing together. We were each other’s person to lean on, cheer-lead for, and bounce ideas off of. I could trust 100% that he always had my best interests at heart. Making life decisions on my own after learning to lean into that is definitely not fun – I wrote about how unanchored I can feel now.

When the Mirror Shatters 

There’s this quiet, constant hum of second-guessing that has been coming along for my widowhood journey. Self-doubt has crept into almost every corner of my life. Tom’s death crushed not just my world, but how I saw myself within it too. Megan Devine talks about how you don’t just lose a person, but rather you lose a mirror – someone who reflected you back to yourself. 

Losing Tom shattered the mirror that reflected the version of me only he saw. Shifted my identity. Losing that mirror is disorienting – it changes your self-image and confidence, opening up space for doubts that were never there before to creep in. Even after all the healing work I’ve done around how Tom died, there are still tiny flickers of doubt that can creep in. 

Cracking Open Doubts

I’ve written previously about how suddenly everyone has opinions after you become a young widow. There’s also so judgement much that comes via my own internal dialogue too.  

The doubt, the spiralling, the questions …
Am I doing grief right?
Am I talking about Tom enough, but not too much?
Am I making the right decisions on my own? 
For someone who would have previously described myself as quite a confident person, this has all been surprising.  

Grief has a way of cracking open places you didn’t know were fragile. You’re left rebuilding a sense of self from fragments that don’t feel like they fit. It’s an exhausting process to move towards trusting myself again. 

Doing Grief Right

There’s this pressure – spoken, implied, imagined – to do grief right. To be sad, but not too sad. To move forward, but not too fast. To care and share, but not too much that it makes other people uncomfortable.

Even fellow grievers can unintentionally stir up the self-doubt. Sometimes they offer advice based on their own experience, or ask questions that land in one of those tender spots you didn’t realize was exposed.

There is this strange club you become part of after a horrific loss. There’s something comforting about being around people who speak this whole other shared language, who swap the dark humour without flinching, who understand the weight of what we each carry. But I think we have to be careful too. I’ve learned a ton about grief and my own experience, but I won’t pretend to understand anyone else’s experience. 

I think again about David Kessler’s response to the question, what kind of grief is the worst? Your grief. Whatever grief you are going through is absolutely the worst grief.

There’s no hierarchy. No achievement. No “expert griever” who gets to weigh in on where you should be or what you should be feeling. Our relationships were all different, so our grief will all be different too. You are absolutely doing your grief right.

Unsolicited Advice 

I distinctly remember a conversation just over a year after Tom died. I met another widow who asked how I was holding up. I shared that at least my body wasn’t having such an intense physical reaction to the dates around his death each month anymore so I was appreciating that change. She replied with a laugh, “Oh, that will all be coming back for you!” Definitely was not helpful for me to hear a prediction of me dropping back there. Also didn’t end up being my experience. 

I struggle with each offhand remark implying I’m over this. Recently someone had learned my husband died and, with the kindest intentions, clarified how long it had been and then said something along the lines of, “But you’re better now right?” Everyone has these kind hearts, wanting to ensure this has been fixed for me.

Then I’ve also had the opposite, where people offer up their advice on some magical fix I need to do so I can finally heal. This advice can especially grind when it comes from someone who has experienced such a different type of loss – I truly do repeat that David Kessler quote in my head to talk myself down! I have scribbled down a mantra for myself too, “This is about their discomfort, not your truth”.

The Grief is Here to Stay

I’ve done a ton of healing work as time has carried on and I definitely am doing a lot better. Yet, the simple fact remains that Tom is still dead. My world is still turned on its head. Our lives are still so intertwined – like this week I got a letter that I need to square up on something outstanding from Tom’s 2021 taxes, so I mean if I still get to pay his outstanding bills then yeah I’d say I am pretty justified in still feeling this loss! 

Jokes aside, a loss like this will always be felt. I’ve reached my own conclusion of what I think is important here: grief is very different from trauma. Sure I just said not to give advice, but here I’m going to softly offer advice to anyone who wants it … tease out what the trauma of your loss is (it’s not always obvious) and do your best to try different ways to work on healing that trauma. Then realize there are certain parts you can’t heal, and that isn’t failure, but rather that’s grief. The massiveness of loving and losing your person shapes you and will come forward with you. I actually am not interested in shutting that down. I don’t believe you can actually be ok with someone that was so huge in your life just not being here anymore. Sure spiritual connection can be real and comforting, but it’s never the same as having your person physically here.  Losing your partner has got to be the most physically dysregulating loss. The nervous system feels that for a long time. There’s forever that shadow of a life that could have been too.

Grief is love… 
…but sometimes it is crying yourself to sleep years later
…but sometimes it is anger at your life looking so different than other peoples’ 
…but sometimes it is disbelief at how this has to continue for the rest of your life 

Sometimes grief is love’s pain, 
… and that needs to be welcomed in too. 

Not Every Feeling Needs a Reason

I’ve been trying to move towards not needing to label a reason for every emotion that pops up – like oh today is a day with lots of tears, what was it that set that off?
This is a tall order for someone who has, in fact, built a blog around analyzing grief from every angle! I believed that if I could just understand the pain, I could somehow master it. Now I’m learning that sometimes the most compassionate thing I can do is simply say: “I don’t need a reason. This just hurts. That’s ok.”

Learning to Swim

I once read a quote – can’t remember who said it – about one day being able to tell the story of how you pulled yourself out of the ocean when you didn’t even know how to swim. Somedays I still feel like I’m flailing, while other days I can reflect with genuine pride and wonder how I even got to this point. But I did. It’s finding that trust in myself again, knowing I’ll continue to carry myself forward in the best way for me.

There is no guidebook to grief. No easy path to take. No right way to do it.

I’ll finish by sharing one last scribble I have written down – 

You don’t owe the world a performance.
You owe yourself tenderness.