Involuntarily Unspoused*

I did not sign up for this gig. I liked my life the way it was. I liked being a wife and I liked being married to Jim.

Then he died.

I did not choose to walk this path.

July 5, 2002:
Time and the passage of it have no meaning. Great blocks of either pass without knowing or caring. I am hollow.

July 24, 2002:
My grief knows no bounds. I am bereft. I cannot feel you. There is no peace.

July 31, 2002:
31 years we would have had today. Yet, you are not here up on this mountain we came to love and consider our special anniversary place. I am alone…you are not here…and...I am alone.

July 31, 2003:
32 years. 2 anniversaries without you. And, yet…my life goes on and there are things that bring me momentary joy and even laughter…still…bone deep sadness underlies it all.

July 31, 2004:
33 years. 3 anniversaries without you. I set your spirit free today up on that lonely Tennessee mountain where your ancestors dwell safe within their dark cocoons. Ashes spread with Miss Dorothy down in the valley as well. Your love lives eternally within my heart while yet I let your spirit freely roam. You will ever be a part within as well as the universe without.

July 31, 2005:
34 years. 4 anniversaries without you. It’s time to stop counting, you know…we will always be 30 years together.

Do you smile today as do I? The memories have become melancholy sweet...no tears today. Gratitude fills me instead for the life, love and laughter we were gifted to share.

I never thought to come to this particular shore on this rocky journey. And, I am yet amazed to be so. Thank you, love, for this gift.

Today:
I still would not choose this path.

Widows walk in footsteps left by generations of others. In the early days that meant nothing to me. Yet, from this 3 year vantage point I know they walked with me.

What they leave behind of their pain and sorrow lives to help us shoulder the burdens we, too, must bear. Though we think we cannot do this one more minute there is somehow the strength to do just that.

There is a 95 year old lady who was my role model even before we shared widowhood. Widowed for over 50 years, she raised her children and supported herself alone. She has volunteered her life and time to caring about others...knitting caps for newborns until her eye sight failed; teaching Sunday school to who knows how many generations of children in this town; visiting the elderly in nursing homes until this last year and just generally finding reasons to be thankful for her life every single day despite her husband's death, her own failing health and financial issues. Once I could think beyond the next intake of breath I was determined not to be the crazy widow down the street. I was going to stand firm and tall and beat the monster at his own game. Yet, I found the firmer I stood the harder the grief tried to beat me.

On the good days I felt strong and able to handle things. The days I woke up with the monster in the bed I felt I may as well stay there.

There were days I WAS the crazy widow down the street.

Unable to sleep at night, I was often out in the yard by lantern light plucking weeds that didn’t care I splashed them with a million hot tears of pain. Plants that didn’t care if I cursed the heavens I no longer trusted with each anguished yank that pried them from their greedy clutch upon the earth. The yard has not looked so good since.

I roamed the house, dusted and rearranged things that hadn’t been in their current spot long enough to have the first spot on them. I watched television I can’t even remember. I looked at books and magazines I once devoured with a passion only to realize I could not focus on the words let alone their meaning.

And, I cried till I thought I could not possibly have a single tear left only to take a ragged breath and spill even more. (I should have bought stock in Kleenex)

I took dishes from the cabinet and rewashed them just for something to do. There were days I thought the pain and darkness would never pass. Many a night was spent wishing that I could go to sleep and never wake up again. Imagine my dismay to wake each morning to find I was still breathing.

Yet, some survival mode was still intact: I actually made up excuses why I couldn't die yet....the dog needed out, the cats needed feeding, the plants watering, my grandmonkey needed me, my kids already lost Dad how could I also take Mom away? Both of my parents were elderly and my dad in particular in ill health...he needed me. I needed to do laundry, wash the car...anything that kept me in right now.

See, the trouble was that the fog that protected me for a while had truly lifted and reality smashed into me like a freight train loaded with steel. The pain and the feeling of not being able to breathe were very real...I remember writing my high school friend and telling her I truly felt like I was drowning.

Yet...here I am. Three years and I am still standing…often battered, bruised and sore…but standing nonetheless.If you will believe me that time will help I can tell you that it is true. This is truly the hardest work you will ever do.

[* I did not invent Involuntarily Unspoused. The phrase came about from a discussion with other wounded souls like mine who hated (and still hate) the words widow, widower and widowed. Blunt, yet, appropriate.]