dating a widower

Dream House


Dream House Country Inn (1852)

Image by origamidon via Flickr

Selling the house is proving to be more traumatic than I would have ever guessed. In so many ways the house has been my prison these last 3 years. There are very few happy memories and the majority of those are recent ones, but I have been feeling more and more down as prospective buyers traipse through. In part, I think, because of the silent (or in the case of one snotty woman not so very) judging that goes on.

 

Mick remarked to me in an email early on in the listing process that she found the whole process of showing houses to buyers weird. That it would feel as though they were checking her out too. In a way she is right. The walls need paint. The flooring is outdated and worn. The bathrooms need a bit of updating as well. Nothing monumental but if you didn’t know my story, you would wonder what kind of lazy home-owner I have been.

 

In an even odder way, it makes me feel more like a failure than I already do when I reassess my care-taking and early widowed days. Leave it to me to seek perfectionism in roles that I never wanted in the first place.

 

This house was supposed to be our future. We had spent endless hours speculating and planning. Thinking about it now, our dreams were so cliche. A suburban life. The kind that everyone else lives. At the time I wanted to be like everyone else. I guess if I am being honest I sometimes still do want that. To be like everyone else. I am not sure though that I am like everyone else or ever was. The root of my discontent perhaps is that I have spent a large part of my life trying to not be myself.

 

When I go into the basement, I see the pool table that Will wanted. The patio out the sliders to the backyard should be a deck. Dee’s room upstairs should be occupied with the baby brother she has always wanted, and the spare bedroom should be green with Disney princesses on the wall. The kitchen should look like someone actually cooks, and the living room should actually have furniture in it that we shopped for on a Sunday afternoon while the kids climbed on the displays as though they were at the playground down the street. His white truck should be sitting in the drive and the creepy guy who lives next door shouldn’t have ever felt free to watch me like he still sometimes does.

 

It’s silly to let all these endings drag me down when I have so much love and life surrounding me and so many happy events and happier days and nights to look forward too. But the past must be bid a proper farewell and tucked in to rest for awhile. I want to meet the future with my heart and mind fully present and that means letting certain memories and regrets have their moment when they come knocking. Acknowledge the past that could have been while remembering that you never were meant to live there.

 

Tricky business, like letting go. I didn’t realize until recently that I had let a certain part of myself go back there from time to time. I had always thought that I was moving forward at all times. Surprise, eh?

 

My favorite couple to come through so far looked to be first timers. I could hear her gushing about the color of the upstairs bath which I had loved myself when I first saw it though the realtor and Will thought it was awful. She was animated and excited and bursting with enthusiasm. The house deserves someone like her after what it has gone through. It should have laughter and life to look forward to again.

For a Reason


Gravestones, Koyoto, Japan

Image via Wikipedia

Everything happens for a reason.

 

Without a doubt that is one of the more irritating platitudes you will hear during the first year or so of widowhood. Because even if it is true, it’s the last thing you want to try and force your shattered heart to accept. That the love you had, the life you lived, was in some ways never meant to be. At least not in the Hallmark card version of marriage most of us view as the rule rather than the exception. Two white-haired octogenarians sitting on a porch in the twilight, holding hands and rocking slowly in a swing.

 

My husband got sick just about five years ago when I was pregnant with our only child. He died a long slow degrading death. It was a genetic disease, and he passed the marker for it along to our daughter who will someday run the risk of passing it on to a son, who will die the same way his grandfather did. Meant to be?

 

We live in a cause/effect world, so yes, probably there is a reason for everything that happens. That doesn’t mean that the reason was something profound or wonderful or even good for all parties involved. And it doesn’t have anything to do with people being good or bad. People will come into and exit our lives for our whole life. That is just the way life is. Does knowing this make it easier to accept? Hurt less?

 

Was I meant to be a widow? Raise a child on my own? Maybe. For a short time this has been my destiny. Even if there is a “plan” mapped out for us all, what difference does that make? Would knowing make Will’s death, the way he died even, hurt less? Make being a widowed mother easier? Meeting Rob the way I did and coming to love and trust and depend on him as I do. Destiny? Sometimes there are no answers. We just do the best we can. Get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. Be grateful for the wonderful things that once were and in awe of that which is.

 

A family came through the house last evening with yet another realtor. Very nice. Very polite. The husband was more interested than the wife which makes me think they will not be the eventual buyers. When it comes to buying a home, it is usually about what mom wants. Three very well-behaved children. I want the house to go to a family. It would make me feel better to know that someone will live out those dreams here that Will and I were never meant to.

 

 

It is What it is


Bruce Lee wall painting. Tbilisi, Georgia

Image via Wikipedia

“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.” – Bruce Lee

 

Rob has this saying that he uses to explain, qualify, quantify and generally achieve a zen state about nearly all things that are beyond his reach and control. “It is what it is.” I have to admit the path to Nirvana is not as cut and dried for me. I have a difficult time just leaving things alone even when all I can really do is worry about it.

 

Back in the last month or two before the first anniversary of Will’s death, I had this nagging feeling that something “wicked this way comes”. I called this feeling “the other shoe” as in “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. I am not unique in this anxiety ridden state of being. It’s common among the widowed. Common among most survivors of tragedy in general I would venture to guess. When you have lived through one of the worst things you could ever possibly imagine happening, no matter how fervently you hope for better days…..believe in their eventuality even…..you cannot help but fear the future a little. It hasn’t smiled too widely on your recent past after all. After a while I came to understand that this feeling I would get was nothing more than the grief alerting me to the passing of another milestone or “first” without Will. It was what it was, I guess. But even all these months later, and the ample opportunities life as provided for practice purposes, I am still not over the need to try and control circumstances through action. Pre-emption even when possible. I can’t let things just be what they are. I need to fix or explain or something. A side-effect of care-taking? Something inborn? My teacher side? I don’t know.

 

It’s turned me into something of a risk taker. Even while I was trying to shore up the crumbling sand castle that was my life, I was taking tremendous chances. Changing teaching assignments two years ago when I knew that the end was near for Will and I would be in a new situation without my established support network. Going back to get my masters when Will was first sick even. Tossing aside fair-weather friendships because I didn’t think their occasional help and support was worth the emotional strain. Completely changing the terms of my relationships with family and in-laws for much the same reason. The whole dating thing when I clearly wasn’t ready. And, of course, Rob – who turned out to be the least risky of all my leaps of faith.

 

I am asked all the time how I am feeling about leaving for Canada to be with Rob. Am I worried? Am I scared? Am I sure?

 

I worry about the details because that is who I am: a water rabbit. I am scared of crossing the border because Immigration is an authority unto itself. But, I have rarely been this sure of who I am, where I am going and what I want.

 

It is what it is. Just kick when you need to and punch when necessary.