young widowhood

About the Name


Anniegirl 1138 is a moniker I created for myself out of desperation when trying to register as a member of a message board for young widowed people. My first choice was just Annie, but being common and simple, it was already in use.

I then fell back on Anniegirl which was the name I used years ago at BabyCenter when I was trying to get pregnant for the first time. Unsurprisingly it too was already spoken for, though in the many months I was posting at the YWBB, I never ran across the poster whose name that was.

Finally, I struck upon the idea of simply adding numbers to the end of the name I wanted to use. And I wanted to use Anniegirl. It is actually a nickname that goes back farther even then BabyCenter. It was first given to me when I was a third year teacher by a counselor I was working with in a middle school at-risk program. Her name was Karla and she was in the habit of nicknaming everyone she knew and liked. She first called me Anniegirl and we struck up a friendship that last for several years and even though we are no longer close friends – she still calls me that.

 The random number thing was a tough one however. I have a difficult time remembering my own cell phone number (okay – confession – I can’t remember my cell number at all which is why it is a good thing that my husband knows it by heart). I chose 1138 after the George Lucas film THX1138. Why I can remember George Lucas’s college phone number and not my own cell number is a mystery, but there you have it – Anniegirl1138.

Generally speaking I am as ego-centric as anyone in the blogosphere and maybe moreso. I began blogging at MSN Spaces during the summer of 2006. It was a place to put my angst and I had plenty of it at the time, and to get back into the habit of writing everyday. I eventually moved on to dotmac where I still maintain a blog and it’s doppleganger at blogger, and now I am here.

This blog will, hopefully, not be about angst. I am tired of it. Not that I don’t still have angsty critters knocking about the recesses of my being, but I am in need of …….. something different. Oh, I tried politics at the Des Moines Register blog site during the weeks leading up to the Caucases, but despite what most of the Canadians I live amongst seem to think – I don’t have a deep and abiding interest in the running of my homeland. I trust that someone will do it – badly – and that I and my descedants will bankroll this with the sweat of our brows and the ache in our backs – but for the most part, it falls somewhere inbetween amusing and scary-ass surreal.

I don’t have a hobby – aside from writing which is more of a complusion really. I don’t live in a big city, so I can’t scope out great food kiosks as I have read one guy in New York does to his greater financial good. I don’t go to the movies or concerts often enough to review them. In fact, I don’t even watch TV anymore. So, the idea of making this blog topical or cultural or helpful in any widespread way just won’t work.

My personal blog is about my widowed journey and my remarriage. Not titilating stuff for the non-widowed of the world – who in my age group vastly outnumber those of us who have lost a spouse. And though second marriage is common enough these days, I wouldn’t be much of a resource for those who are divorced. Our experiences are just not the same once you get past the superficial. And you get past that quick.

So, I imagine this blog will be as egocentric as the majority, and that might be enough reason for some of you to check it out and perhaps stick around for a while.

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.

 

 

Soul Mates


Kindred Spirits

Image via Wikipedia

A soul mate is a once in a lifetime thing and when this lifetime is through the departing soul crosses to the other side where it waits patiently to be reunited with its mate because it is incomplete without its match. Like a pair of socks.

The patient part alone is more than enough proof that this theory is not true. I can’t remember a time when Will waited patiently for anything. Much as he loved me, he never let me forget that I kept him waiting in the beginning.

Our match was, in some respects, purely an emotional and physical one; we had very little in common in terms of interests in the very beginning, but I knew the moment I  saw him that we would be together at some point. It began as a friendship, and when he decided this was no longer enough, he waited me out an entire summer while I dated other people and got over my fear of the emotional intimacy he represented. It’s impossible to say how we would have held up over time, but had I not met him, I would be never married today.

The topic of soul mates comes up from time to time on the YWBB. One of the first times I put forth an opinion about it in my early posting days, I came down on the negative side. At least this is according to Rob, who is currently cleaning out his collection of favorite posts. He ran across my original reply over the weekend and brought it up when we were on messenger the other night night waiting for my daughter to fall asleep.

I have thought more about the soul mates issue since as I have run across other posts that mention or discuss it. I am still not inclined to believe in it myself. I think that what is meant, when someone refers to their significant other as a soul mate, is more in line with the idea behind kindred spirits. In fact Rob made reference to this term once in our early correspondence. According to the dictionary it means “of similar nature or character”. I do think that sometimes you just connect with some people in a way that defies logic, and that some people are destined to be a part of your life. I don’t think it is a once in a lifetime thing though, and I think that this can apply to non-romantic relationships as well.  For  example, I knew my daughter before she was born, and she has actually told me that she chose me to be her mommy, not once but twice.

Rob and I are kindred spirits. I sensed it a bit in the beginning when I would read his posts. It was a feeling that compelled me to reply to a post of his in the General Forum one night. I offered to be his “evil twin”. I needed to meet him. Learn about him. Know him. I have experienced this before, with Will of course, but also with friends I have made over the years.

I have no great guru-like theory myself about this type of connecting, but I’ve read, or maybe heard, the following one somewhere, and it makes sense to me. This theory is based on the assumption that reincarnation is a fact and that we will live our way through multiple lives on this plane before moving on to the next. It proposes that we go through eternity with a set group of kindred spirits, or soul mates if you prefer, with whom we are always connected. Our relationships change from one lifetime to the next. Husband/wife. Parent/child. Siblings. Friends. There is the inevitable ebb and flow which naturally takes on different dimensions when the vast breadth of time is considered, but the connections are always evident to us.

What’s funny to me is that the people most likely to be spouting the soul mates line are those least likely to be introspective enough about relationships to require likeness of mind in a prospective mate to justify the label in the first place. It is purely a physical thing with them. It is love at first sight with a heavy emphasis on sight. The sharing of ideas and values is less important than the establishment of mutual chemistry. In my opinion that is not what is meant by soul mates, as they explain it, and is certainly not kindred spirits as I know it. A poster on the board wrote something to the effect that she didn’t believe that two people could, or would, reveal their innermost thoughts via email or on the phone. I suppose that is true for some. For me it would be impossible to keep myself to myself and from someone with whom I felt I already knew. I trusted Rob with my first blog entries before we even began to correspond in earnest. My blog was raw and rambling and much of what I wrote could have been easily misinterpreted, but I knew I could trust him and he has more than shown that my trust is well-placed.

When I read about looking for another soul mate, I am puzzled. Kindred spirits seek each other out and with the help of destiny, cross time and space to be reunited. There are 1500 miles and an international border between Rob and I. There was a 10 year age gap between myself and Will. Rob and his late wife, Shelley, were born 2300 miles apart, but in each case it was meant to be; we all found each other. It is not a matter of finding however so much as being found which for the most part means simply being open to the possibility.