Widow Warriors

I need to acknowledge all those who have lost loved ones, before and after my experience.  It is such a difficult process to go through.  It is as if we have formed an unknown society of "people who have experienced traumatic loss."  We can look each other in the eye and say "Yes, I know the hell you have experienced."  To all those who are grieving a loss, this entry is for you.....


To this day, seven almost eight years later,  I still hate to tell people my story.  Not because it brings up emotion for me (that happens on a daily basis), but because I feel this burden of upsetting others.  I watch their faces change, scrunch-up, and change color as they try to process the information I just gave them.  When I tell people, especially new acquaintances, all conversation stops and I feel the need to fill that space with justification, telling people "It's okay, it happened a while ago and I'm okay with it."  Yuck!  At those times, I wish I would just shut my mouth and allow people to process and feel what they need to feel.  Maybe one of these days I will find a graceful way to tell people "my story" and not feel the need to fill the empty space.

In India the widow/widower wears white for the first year after death.  It is a sign of honor for the one who had past and allows others to know of the person's pain.  

That first year after I lost Patrick, Olivia and Runa, I wished I could wear special clothes to let the public know that my heart was broken and to be tender with me.  I felt hallow and naked.  Even just a post-it note on my back saying: This woman lost her husband, child and dog in a car accident.  Be nice to her and don't ask silly questions, would have made a world of difference.


We all go through our day, meeting strangers, talking and interacting with them.  But as a grieving widow and childless mother, it's a different experience.

I travelled back to Winnetka, Illinois, Patrick's hometown, to attend a memorial service for Patrick and Olivia.  At that time, I was probably at one of my deepest lows.  I was struggling to make sense of each day.  When I got on the plane to return home, I sat down in an aisle seat, rested my arm on the arm rest and took a deep sigh.  An older gentleman across the aisle, gently reached over and touched me on the shoulder.  He looked at me directly and said "Hang in there, I know it's hard now, but you are a beaming light of sunshine."  I was perplexed.  I thought, how does he know?  Most likely he didn't, but it was the kindness of a stranger that made that plane ride bearable.

But there is the other side of friendly, innocent interaction that made me as a widow not want to face the public each day:

Shortly after the accident, still on crutches and with cuts on my face, I went to the pharmacy to get some medication.  The clerk was a very nice man, just trying to help his customers.  As I was paying he innocently said, "hey, be careful on your skateboard next time!"  He meant nothing by it, but my emotions were so out of whack and I was so tender that I cried for the rest of the afternoon.

Or I think people just don't think:  At the end of the school year, we had a small end-of-the-year party.  I was feeling particularly brave and asked a teacher who was two cars behind us what he saw the morning of the accident,  since I didn't remember much.  He told me his rendition of the events and then added "You guys were our guardian angels that morning.  If you had not been in front of me, that could have been me who died."  Oops!

Now, I look back at those comments and chuckle.  That teacher was being honest; he was grateful.  He didn't realize it would soak up two or three therapy session of me telling my therapist why that made me so angry.

Our daily interactions are most often innocent and benign.  We don't know the person's history or emotional state when we talk to them.  I think we are just trying to be friendly and nice.  When a person experiences a deep loss, some switch in our brain gets flipped and we process information differently.  That is why some sort of clothing, or even a hat would be nice.  It would remind people, "hey, this person's experiencing a difficult time, be nice, be friendly, but be cautious."

No matter how innocent, how friendly the comment may be, it cuts deep and we, the widow warriors have to continue on as if life is worth living and we have no pain in our hearts.  And when we feel as though we could crawl in a hole and die, facing daily life, interacting with others becomes one of the most difficult tasks to face each day as we grieve our losses.