For Folks Who Will Someday Be Widows

 Honey,

I'm thinking of writing a post or a poem or an essay or a book to be titled "For Folks Who Will Someday Be Widows". I'm not really sure how it will go, only what it must include and who should read it. I think it should be required reading as one prepares to be wed. It will give context to the line "Until Death Due Us Part", the line most people don't consider. I mean just the fact alone that one of the couple will support the other and grieve the other at some point is important, so in numbers (I know you like numbers) 50% of those married will be widowed. And likewise that the other 50% may die without their spouse but perhaps with the other waiting in heaven. That alone feels important to understand.

I think also perhaps those who are supporting the widow or widower, perhaps they should read it too. It may help them to understand or empathize or know what to do for the widow or widower without asking, knowing that they themselves have a 50% chance of someday being in those same shoes. But perhaps not.

You left me a bit of a map and a path. You did so much for me before you passed. Everyday I find out more: how you closed some accounts and moved them into our larger account; how you left spreadsheets of what needed doing when and of your passwords—keys to your virtual life; how you made videos on taking care of the house; bought me both a new lawnmower and snowblower as you knew I could not continually fix the old ones; and perhaps I am most grateful for your video conversations about your life and the fact that you wore a catheter in your last few weeks so I could hear your voice and thoughts again and so that I could better care for you. You were always kind, always a gentleman. What I am discovering every day is how deeply you loved me, even to the point to taking care of me for after you died. But perhaps that is not the content of the book or poem or essay or post entitled "For Folks Who Will Someday Be Widows", no that is for the book "For Folks Who Will Someday Die Before Their Beloved".

No the essay or book or poem or post for Widows and Widowers should include things like expect to be traumatized and to walk as if in a fog for weeks on end, expect to cry everyday and every evening, expect that you will maniacally be searching for knowledge you can not own—like if there is heaven or reincarnation or ghosts or signs or even what did it mean when your beloved lay dying and was seeing lights or people you could not see? Expect that you will clean and clean and clean or repair everything in-between the raw crying. Perhaps another way of preparing the house for the return of the beloved who passed or perhaps a way of having a bit of control over life, I'm not sure which but I do know the house will be cleaner than it has since it was first purchased. Expect that you will go through every file, every shoebox every item of your beloved, slowly, tenderly, and with love—that in doing so those items you had once wanted your spouse to "do something with" will become more precious and lead to your loving them even more deeply, in awe of who they were. Expect to be angry and inpatient with the world. Expect that when you go out and see couples and children and folks smiling that you will remember when you both did too and you will miss that and want to cry all over again just as you felt it was becoming safe to go out into the world again. Expect that you will feel guilty about so many things like that your spouse would not want you to be so miserable or that your marriage was not given more time or that you did not know soon enough about the cancer and that you couldn't make it go away or that likewise you were not prepared for the paralyzing depth of the pain or the immovability of death, or that you are grateful that one's beloved is no longer suffering but you want them back in any shape or form. Expect that you will be grateful for what you had and then mourn that it is gone never to return. Expect to feel that life has no more meaning but somehow you must find it again. Expect that you will feel subtly pressured by some of those who love you or those who know you to "get over it", but you will not. ever.

Honey, I don't want you to feel bad about this all. I know my grief is a way to integrate our life and your death, to integrate in my soul the great love we had and its physical loss. I know its a way of finding a new future, just not the one we were planning to enjoy together. I'm just not ready for that future without you yet and may not be for a while. Mourning is a way, a heart wrenching way, of shifting all of those desires and hopes to what is now the path unchosen. I know that someday, I will find joy again but you will always be walking beside me in the hollowness of my heart that has been left behind.

"Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light." —Brene Brown