moving on after the death of a spouse

Looking Back


Lot's Wife on the Dead Sea Shore

Lot's Wife on the Dead Sea Shore by Ian W Scott via Flickr

In the beginning, I looked back a lot. Went over every detail and tried to figure out what I overlooked or just didn’t see that could have made the difference between Will dying or still being alive.

When it finally sunk in that this was not the most productive use of my time, I downgraded that particular brand of self-torture to “hobby” and took up the full-time task of trying to stay one-step ahead of disaster.

My world was a house of cards, and it took only the slightest suggestion of a breeze to threaten it. I was single-minded in this respect as well. I rarely let anyone stop me from doing what I thought needed to be done. There were times when I was wrong, because who isn’t, but more often I managed to come to just the right solution and stave off the wind for another day.

Afterwards, I tarried for quite some time in the eye of the hurricane that I had been holding off with super-human will, but as time passed and the urgent needs of survival faded, I found that I wasn’t able to anymore. The adrenaline surge came to an abrupt and I was swept into the maelstrom.

Storms pass, even tropical ones, and you climb out of the temporary shelters, assess the damage and call your insurance man. That used to be Will. And then it was just me and whomever I could cajole into assisting me. Now there is an exotic Canadian applying for the job. It is harder than I thought it would be to allow him to help. I thought I had learned so much. In the end, I still have trust and control issues to work on.

Still, once upon a time, I didn’t even acknowledge the existence of  these issues, let alone work on them.

I am not sure how it happened that I came to fall in love and agree to abandon the cocoon existence I had so carefully constructed for myself and my daughter. For all my Saggitarian impulsiveness, I am more of a water rabbit. Bunnies don’t like working without a net. It makes us cranky. Crankiness being our standard cover for insecurities and fears.

I guess it would be too simple to say that I just couldn’t resist, but I couldn’t. There is something compelling and ultimately futile in resisting destiny and oddly unmistakable. I have never been able to back away, even when I was terrified, and I wouldn’t say that I am really. How could I be after all that has happened? But, I am not naive. I don’t lightly discount the fates. Destiny is the stronger force, but the fates will play havoc where they may.

The “moving” in Moving On


Category:Ford vehicles

Image via Wikipedia

I have been thinking, well more than that really, about moving to be with my boyfriend.

He lives in Canada and I had planned to spend the summer with him anyway, but he would like me to just come up with my daughter and stay. It is an idea with many things going for it. Primary is that I love him and want to be with him, but there are secondary benefits as well. It would force me to get serious about what I want to do career-wise. He tells me he is okay with taking care of me and my daughter, so I don’t necessarily need to have a job lined up before I come up. I don’t know how I feel about that.

Perplexed really.

I have worked near continuously since I was 15 years old. Even though I know women who do the stay at home thing, I never really imagined myself doing that. I could write. There is a writing program at the university in Edmonton. I could take a class. Work on my writing. That novel I know is in me. K would be in school half days and I would have time. Staying at home, I don’t know. He asked me, what I think, was an important question last night.

Am I changing just to please him?

I have talked about learning to cook. We were talking about doing laundry which led to the inevitable ironing that I basically choose to ignore. Would I cook if it weren’t for him? Iron? I don’t enjoy cooking now but there was a time when, even though I wouldn’t have called it fun, I did it. For my daughter’s sake more than anything, I know I need to start doing it again. And I do iron when I need to. I just don’t see the need very often and I doubt much that would change (and truthfully, I have never been able to iron dress shirts properly. Memories of my mother’s pursed lips as she inspected my attempts are not buried too deeply in my mind).

There is a lot that needs to be done before I can go and live with him though. I wonder if we are being realistic about the time table. I felt more confident, too, before I told an old friend the other night about what I was planning. She rained pretty heavily on the parade. Some of her concern was unwarranted and based on the fact that I have delibrately kept some people out the the inner loop of my life in the past 6 months, but she made a few points.

It would be easier to do this I think were it not for the scary times of the last few years. They have made me crave safety more than I have in the past. I am still a little fragile though getting better. And then there is my daughter. There is this tremendous sense of responsibility and need to protect her from…..well….everything, and I know it is not realistic. I can’t make life perfect and risk free for her, and I know her well enough to know that what is most important for her is that I be in a place where I am happy. Her happiness mainly derives from mine right now.

There is still a lot to think about, plan and do.

More Than Friends


A couple dating in a cafe.

Image via Wikipedia

You get to this point where dating is more than the work it really is anyway and despite the fact that you are creating new definitions for the word lonely on a hourly basis, you just quit. But the need to connect with someone of the opposite gender is not one that is easily vanquished so you end up in these rather odd friendships with widowerers. You message with them on the YWBB site or you move into emails or IMing.

And there is nothing romantic about it but it is not entirely innocent either because neither of you is used to playing coy or being circumspect anymore and it isn’t long until you are looking too forward to the time you “spend” with this other person.

I had two such friendships. One that is over by mutual agreement.

The second is becoming something else. By mutual agreement.

And I have to admit that I am happy about that. I should be frightened really and sometimes I want to just tell him that. That this is really scary and that I would rather just be “just friends” again, but I don’t. Don’t tell him that. Don’t want to be just his friend. Don’t have any idea of what is propelling me onward in this aside from a need to know him.

Since the week before Christmas when we first began to communicate, I have received 128 emails from him. We IM every night now and talk for hours past the late night into the early morning hours on the weekends.

Two weeks from tomorrow I will see him in person for the first time. It is strange to have these overwhelming feelings for someone I have never been in the same room with. Not even the same country with. There are all these questions. Like why would anyone so wonderful be so concerned about me? Will I get shy and tongue-tied when I see him? Will it be as easy to talk to him when I am looking in his eyes? What will his arms around me feel like? How will I ever be able to hold everything I think and feel back when there is nothing in between us anymore? When does more than friends become more than that?