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Things That Remain: Guilt (Part 1 of 4)
In this four-part series, I discuss the things that remain for me (and for some of my readers) in the years after widowhood. “We didn’t get the Hallmark goodbye.” I hear this a lot from my widowed friends, and I get it. Sure, I suppose there are times when couples do get that moment, just before someone dies, when they are able to express all of the love between them. I mean, it must happen sometimes, right? That’s how it happens in the movies! So when you lose someone to an accident or suicide or heart attack – or any other relatively instantaneous loss – it can feel especially unfair.…
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Feeling Bad That It Doesn’t Feel Bad
Three years is a strange marker in the widow world. The first year of widowhood is just about survival. It’s about figuring out how to get up every day, how to grieve and still pay the bills, how to put one foot in front of the other when you’re so tired you can’t even really think. It’s about making it through to the end of the day. Or at least it was for me. The second year feels easier for some people, and harder for others. It’s when the day-to-day life gets more manageable, and yet the intensity of the loss is still there. My second year, I had a…
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Guilt (Part 2)
The notes from my widowed readers came in pieces over the past few months, but together, they read something like this: I am so happy that you have found your second love, Chris. You seem really happy! I also recently found someone new, and for the first time in a long time, I feel alive again. But here’s my question: does this feeling (of being alive and in love) make you also feel guilty? I have a simple answer for that: no. (But also, I do still feel guilt sometimes.) I guess this needs some explanation. In fact, I’ve been thinking about guilt a lot lately. So much of 2018…
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Goodbye, 2019… (Part 1 of 2)
Goodbye 2019. Goodbye breakouts, worry lines and gray hairs from grief. I may not be able to hide you all, but I’m going to try. Goodbye waking up at 2 am. Goodbye fear that I can’t grill hamburgers or do my finances. Yes, Shawn did them before. But I can do them now. Goodbye first heartbreak after Shawn, the one that made me feel like I couldn’t go on. Really, I could. Goodbye black mold in the garage. Yes, you came because I didn’t go out to that garage for a year after Shawn died. But I got rid of you in the end, didn’t I? Goodbye to worrying about…
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Guilt
“He needs a colonoscopy soon, Marjorie.” I think about these words all the time. My dad said them to me probably a month before Shawn’s diagnosis, after some tests had revealed that there were tiny bits of blood in Shawn’s stool. At the time, I told my dad that Shawn had one scheduled for January. “I’d do it sooner,” he replied. Our talk that day scared me a bit, but I brushed it off. Shawn had a doctor here in DC, and he was getting on a new antibiotic to help his pain. I didn’t need to worry too much. Why didn’t I make him go get the colonoscopy right…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
