widowhood – sassyfitnesschick

The Unwanted Role of A Widow

As I sit down to write this post and gather my thoughts, journal writings and observations on the topic of being a widow, I find myself grateful for this blog platform. It connects me to readers all over the world I can communicate with.

It is my hope in sharing this path I’ve walked and am still walking, it would offer hope and encouragement to others who are on this unwanted journey.

I’ve decided in my posts, if applicable, to use my own raw and unfiltered journal entries. They are messy, real and have come from the dark broken places in my heart.

Grief is raw, messy and ugly before it starts getting better and you don’t have to make it look pretty.

I remember months after receiving entry to the widowhood club having to indicate my new status on a form in the doctor’s office.

Not married, but now a widow.

I learned early on in my grief as a new widow that no one really understood what that looked like except those who had unwillingly, walked before me.

I was blessed to be surrounded by women who knew and understood, who although our circumstances may have looked different,they had crawled through those first days and nights, weeks and months of trying to live and cope with grief.

With that in mind, it has not been hard to imagine what a young woman may be experiencing in the public spotlight after her husband, Charlie Kirk, was brutally assassinated.

As a widow I share a couple things in common with her.

The swift and unexpected sudden death of your spouse,and being a widow.

I’ve seen some disparaging remarks with strangers weighing in on what her grief looks like. As if she’s doing it in a right or wrong way, if she’s crying or not crying or even smiling. She has been bold in her public display of grief reminding everyone of the ugliness of his death and I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same in her position.

Look at what hate did. Look. At. It.

Then there are all of the unsolicited, unwanted opinions while you are reeling from your loss. All while you attempt to make decisions, and take care of life that is still moving forward at an unrelenting, uncaring pace.

Let me just say, as a Christian woman I know that God gives supernatural strength to stand, to interact with people, to engage, and do what is necessary.

Although not in the public spotlight, I stood and I spoke at my husband’s service and led my family through those dark days. The strength I had and still have, isn’t my own.

Mrs Kirks strength comes from God as she navigates so much while still in shock and I cheer for her knowing in a small way, the weight of this unwanted role, a role you didn’t ask for and didn’t want, all while trying to survive.

Opinions abound when you are widowed.

I know in the months ahead people will still come in with their own opinions on what they “think” she should do or not do or if it looks like she’s grieving and sad enough ( whatever that looks like)

The bottom line though? No one is walking in your shoes. No one understands exactly what you are going through, the daily pain you carry, the agonizing nights, brain fog and mental exhaustion, the unexpected memories that tank you, the survival mode you are thrust into…

The list goes on.

You don’t ask for this new title of widow ( or widower) there is no book to tell you how to navigate every single day you wake up to them being gone, managing a life without them.

You just take in the day and you just do what is necessary to survive.

And I have survived. I’ve lived. I’ve not given up or allowed my grief to keep me down.

I had a word for myself for 2024 and it was “thrive”. Even in my grief and loss I was determined to live, to thrive, to move forward. My husband expected me to keep living even in my pain and I did.

Just note though dear reader, if you’re in this place, not everyone will cheer your courage to live, and to live out loud.

It makes them uncomfortable.

They will have their thoughts and opinions on how you live. Just drown out the white noise, focus on your grief and your healing and keep moving forward.

You may not have signed up for the widowhood club but you can weep and grieve all while moving forward and taking hold of the life you still have left to live.

You deserve it, don’t hold back from it.

Grief Before Loss

In my most recent post with you I shared that I had lost my husband in 2023 after a valiant battle with cancer. Losing a spouse will massively derail you in life unless you stand up and really fight back to live, and I mean fight.

Among things derailed,my ability to have the energy or mental clarity to write. Yet writing in my journal these past few years has also been cathartic to release a lot of what I dealt with day to day. It has freed me in so many ways and now, looking back, I can see how far I have come in this journey.

At two years out I think, or maybe I’m wrong, there’s an assumption it’s time to move on and quit talking about it. Especially when your life appears to be going well.

The reality is, he lived, he mattered, he was our person. Talking about him keeps him alive and remembered. Remembering involves tears and laughter. It has moments that are painstakingly, bittersweet, that can almost crush my heart.

And as I shared in my recent post, I’m setting out to write and unpack my suitcase of lessons learned, life still lived, and maybe, some hopeful encouragement to someone reading.

Today I’m examining a thought that may not be known until you walk this road. There is this overall awareness that when your spouse dies is when your grief actually begins.

No one really talks about the grief that sets in years and months before they are actually gone from you. This is especially true if your partner has a disease that they are battling.

The loss comes in all kinds of ways. The worst is the subtleness of how it slowly changes the relationship you had prior to the disease.

The healthy relationship, not the one where a disease begins to set up camp and starts to slowly steal and rob even the most common and ordinary things you share together.

It starts small but gradually things move to you being a protector, you begin to handle more in the relationship, you are more watchful to their needs as they do a little less, and eventually, a lot less. The activities you used to do together become minimal versions or eventually, disappear.

You are aware of their energy level and how it has declined so you step in to do more. Slowly, your relationship changes to a new look.

A new look that neither of you want.

And you grieve.

You cry in the shower or in the car when you take a moment out because the agony of what you’re losing is constantly in front of you and you are helpless to stop it.

An unrelenting reminder that not only are you losing your relationship, you’re slowly, painfully losing them day by day.

And you grieve.

As we moved through increasingly more doctor appointments, tests, scans, and 4.5 hour drives to MD Anderson there was always the new anxiety riding along of what those tests would reveal and how that would further take us down this path.

I took over driving us everywhere ( a job he did not give up lightly or easily) yet another thing in this new angle of our relationship.

On those long trips back home we had lots of hard conversations. Real ones that no one wants to have. As hard as they were, I’m glad we had them.

Sometimes those drives back were at night. He would fall asleep and I’d have nothing but dark highway in front of me for hours, scared, tired, and alone with my thoughts, the tears would come for what I was losing and what we had already lost.

The grief was real and painful long before God called him home.

So when it happens and they are now gone, you aren’t just grieving from that moment of loss, but you are also grieving all of the years,months and days that have gone by while you knew you were losing them.

I had days where all of it, every day in those past years he battled that awful disease, along with him being gone, culminated into agony I can’t describe.

The reality is, no one sees this. They don’t see the intimacy of it or the day to day struggles leading towards your ultimate loss.

They don’t see the grief you already carry.

I hope if you’ve ever had to walk this out that you know I get it, I understand. I hope you know that your grief before your actual loss is valid, I see you.

Take time to honor it all on your journey as you heal and move forward.

Monday Musings

Hello blog world!

In the words of an old song by Staind, “it’s been awhile.” Raise your hands kids if you’re one of my 1.5 readers and are still hanging around here.

I started this blog, hard to believe, 10 years ago. It was with the intent to offer sound and practical diet and nutrition ideas in a world bombarded with nonsense in that arena. May I say, the nonsense still abounds. I won’t get started today on the newest hypes with the diet drugs being pushed or the quick fix instant gratification schemes.

Other aspects of wellness include mental, spiritual and emotional health as well to which I hope to branch out into.

You see, in my absence I’ve had a lot of life to live, pain to bear, and deep grief to carry. I’ve navigated much in these past couple years with the loss of my husband, a man I spent over 40 years of my life with.

Grief and loss. It will visit us all in this lifetime and it’s never easy.

I will say as I’ve been on this journey, I’ve learned, grown, cried, pushed forward, cried again, had days where I couldn’t get off the sofa, asked the hard questions, prayed and journaled my thoughts and pain onto paper. I’ve not run from my grief but have allowed it to do what is necessary for me to keep moving forward.

In these two years since his loss I’ve lived a surreal, whirlwind life and I’ve embraced it all.

In this learning and growing, I’ve packed a lot into my life suitcase I carry. Much like the old box we may keep in our closet with pictures, mementos, and other scraps of our life we plan to assemble into a tidy book.

A reflection of our travels if you will, that is how I feel in this journey I’ve been on.

I want to share and unpack what I’ve learned, how I’ve grown, and the faithfulness of God to see me through some of my darkest days.

I feel confident I’m not alone in this journey and you my readers, or others, may be out there at a loss for words or unsure how to unpack this suitcase of life’s souvenirs.

My blog offers the perfect background to unpack my thoughts. As life goes on people assume you kinda get over things and move on.

You never get over it and I haven’t “moved on”, but I have “moved forward”.

There’s a difference.

Even in my grief, I’ve held onto life, to living and savoring every single day I’ve been blessed with.

I hope you will come along with me on this journey as I unpack my suitcase of lessons learned, thoughts gathered, and life lived.

I hope you will pull up a chair, maybe wiping your own tears as you do, and find that you aren’t on this journey alone.