Becoming a Widow…
Makes you feel like an outsider
Like being the one black crayon in a world full of brightly colored markers.
Makes you feel incompetent
Like trying to eat rice with one chopstick from a spinning plate.
Makes you feel powerless
Like being blindfolded and placed backwards on a roller coaster. Drunk.
Makes you feel ill-equipped
Like assembling a puzzle that doesn’t have all the pieces, and someone has flipped it over to the plain, tan side and thrown in some pieces from another, different puzzle just for kicks.
Makes you feel defeated
Like placing your roulette marker on red, when the wheel has only black pockets. And then wondering why you just can’t seem to win.
Makes you feel lost and confused
Like being caught in a house of mirrors where everything is distorted and unfamiliar, and there is no exit.
Makes you feel panicked
Waking every day from what you think is your worst nightmare only to find that this is now your reality.
Makes you feel weak
As if the very air you walk through is made of Jello and you slog through the day in slow motion.
Obviously some days are worse than others, and as time passes there are more happy moments – sometimes for days on end – but then the sadness and despair can return seemingly out of nowhere, casting a dark shadow over everything.
Bottom line is that there really is no understanding widowhood. There is only surviving it, overcoming it, and maybe becoming all the stronger for it. Here’s hoping…
© 2018 Many Faces of Cheri G All Rights Reserved
Many Faces of Cheri G 
Thank you so much for these statements. I feel exactly, understanding widowhood. I feel so lost and confused. I also feel like I am weak. I had the sudden loss of my husband November 28, 2014. I feel the pain deep down inside. I carry on people think I look like I am moving on, little do they know. This feels like the hardest thing I have had to go through.
Some days are worse than others. I am happy that I found this website.
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Janet, thank you for the kind words. My heart goes out to you on your loss, and you are exactly right – some days (and often hours or minutes) are worse than others. I consider myself moving forward (or at least I like to think I’m making progress), but not moving on. “Normals” as some of us widows refer to the non-widowed community don’t understand. There is a grass-roots movement toward bringing grief out from the shadows so that those coming behind us aren’t thrown for quite the loop we were. We need to talk about this more so we can support each other better. Hugs to you.
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Thank you so much your words mean so much to me. We do have to help each other.
Hugs to you too!
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