Don't Call Me a Widow

 Last week, my husband passed away 41 days before our 30th wedding anniversary.  This made me a widow.  I don't say this because I'm looking for sympathy or trying to create drama.  Friends and family have been both supportive and compassionate and I feel loved. But, I've been trying to tease out why I hate the word widow so much.  I have almost a visceral, punch in the gut reaction every time I hear it, or worse think of myself in those terms; I am now a widow. Weeks, before he'd even begun to seriously decline, I angrily told a friend, "I don't want to be an effin' widow."

My mom, a widow herself, suggested that maybe I disliked the term because it made me feel old.  It's true that there are some age assumptions around the word widow, although obviously one's husband might pass away at any age.  But this wasn't quite right for me.  I don't really feel old, widow or not.  

I'm a weird person.  I like to know why I think and feel things.  I'm seldom content to just accept even my own ideas, thoughts and feelings.  I always want to go digging into the bigger picture and the larger motivation.  Why do I think and feel things?  I knew I needed to keep looking at my dislike of the word widow.

Was it possible that the word made me uncomfortable because it reminded me of my loss?  I'm a widow which means that I'm no longer married because a man I loved died. Not only is he gone but so is the marriage and I liked being married. These things are all true but that wasn't it either.  My husband had frontotemporal dementia and that was what caused his demise.  It wasn't really sudden, and it wasn't unexpected.  He'd been in a nursing home for almost two years, declining steadily.  In the last month, he'd been declining much more rapidly.  

This morning, I finally figured out why this word bothers me so much.  I feel like widow is a defining and restrictive label.  As soon as I say, "I'm a widow" this loss becomes the single most important thing in my life.  Don't get me wrong, this loss is hugely important. It will likely have ramifications for my life for years to come. I'm not heartless. I loved my husband.  I was not perfect by any means, but I was the best wife I could have been for almost thirty years.  I loved, supported, and advocated for this man.  But while I was doing it, I also worked, taught yoga, wrote novels, wrote poetry, went to graduate school.  So yes, I'm a widow.  My husband passed away.  But I'm also a poet. A novelist. An advocate. A yogi. A student. A future therapist. It broke my heart to have to move forward without him but not moving forward at all wasn't an option for me.  

Grief and loss are complicated and highly personal.  Everyone has their own path to walk.  All other people can do is lend you a flashlight (or a machete).  I write only about myself and how I process my losses.  Perhaps identifying as a widow may bring comfort to some.  I'm all for it.  The world could use more comfort. I would never try to tell someone else how they should or should not feel. But for me, widow gives me the ick.  Widow comes from the Old English word widewe which in turn comes from a word which means "be empty".  I have a lot of feelings right now including sadness. But I am not empty.