Not Just A Widow, But A Woman Too.

My Sweet Michael,

It's been 9 1/2 months now that  you've been gone.  Just when I think I'm getting the hang of this "widow thing", the missing you starts over again.  Somehow, life has gone on without you, even though I didn't think it was possible.  I can't say that I've been a willing participant. I can't even say that I've really participated in life at all since you've been gone, but rather I have been pulled along in the current, bobbing for air, resting occasionally and more often, fighting the  hold that it has had on me.

It's not as if I want to stay in this place.  I hate the darkness of my sorrow.  I hate the way that it steals my energy and my drive to accomplish the day to day chores and necessities, but it does.  So, I am trying to fight this monster-this thing called grief, before it steals the rest of the life that I've been given.

For 9 1/2 months, I haven't cared too much about myself.  I have literally eaten my sorrows.  Late at night and in the afternoon when no one is here, I eat.  I eat and I smoke and I stay planted on the couch.  The t.v. putting out mundane noises and my life revolving around this cyber-world that I have built for myself.  I have abused my body horribly.  I have forgotten what it feels like to want to look pretty.  And somehow I find safety and comfort in the ragged sweats and pony tails and lack of adornment that I've taken as my shield.  My outer appearance seems to reflect my inner turmoil.

I want to stop longing for you, Michael.  (Would that make you think that I want to forget you? Or that I no longer love you?).  I just want the pain and the sadness to end.  I want to laugh and I want to take a deep breath that doesn't burn my lungs.  I want to be the person that you loved.  And I want to learn to love myself.  To love the life that God has given me.  I want to bring laughter and happiness back into our home, so that I can parent our little guy.  And so, I'm going to start by trying to teach myself that even though I am a widow, I am still a person who deserves my care.

And Michael, I'm still a woman.  I'm still a woman who misses her husband.  Who misses the companionship of the person God created me for.  I feel as if my body and my spirit have gone into some sort of suspended animation.  I've forgotten what it means to be a woman.  And in loving a husband who is no longer here, I'm not sure that I know what to do with that part of who I am?  But, oh how I miss the way that you made me feel pretty.  I miss the intimacy of our marriage.  I miss hearing your sleep noises, feeling your warmth beneath the blankets.  I miss rolling over and laying my hand on you.  I miss your arms around me and I wonder if I will ever know what it is to be held again?  Remember how you would hug me in the kitchen and you would start to drop your arms and I would say "I'm not finished yet"?.  Baby, I really wasn't finished yet. I wasn't finished being a wife and a woman yet.

Baby, I miss you so much!  I am still so very much in love with you.  There is not a day, or a moment that I don't long for you with all that I am.  But somehow, even in this pain, I know that it's time to start caring about myself too.  It's time to start taking care of my body, it's time to start allowing myself to feel pretty..not for you, or for anyone else, but for myself.  Even your mother tells me that it's time to do that. So, I'm going to try.  I'm going to try my very best to take care of your wife.

I have a wonderful group of women who have surrounded me with friendship and the common bond of widowhood.  I have these beautiful friends that also know that it's time that we learn to love ourselves and so we are holding each other up in this quest for healing.  For learning that even though we are widows, that we are women also.  Women who are worthy of care and adornment.  Women who still have a lot to offer our families and the world.  God must have a purpose for us, or we would not still be here.  So, we will try, with this first step, to move into this unknown life that God has planned for us.

You are now and always will be, the love of my life.  But I know that I must move forward without you.  And as I move forward without you, I also move towards the day that I will be with you once again.

I love you, Baby.