A Letter to the Young Widow

Dear Friend,

I am sorry this letter is titled to the "Young Widow." I know how much that word disgusts you. How your stomach drops, you feel sand in your mouth, and how you automatically reject the title. 



Widow is not who you are. 



Why would anyone ever want to be called that? That is the box you check on government forms. It is how you describe a character in a movie. It's that sweet old lady from church that spent 65 years with the love of her life. And even then their marriage was cut too short. 

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Your mother drove you home from the hospital and you said out loud in your trance: "I am 29."

And then you silently thought: "I am alone. I am 29 and my life has ended." You wouldn't say that out loud right now. You screamed your nonsense over his dead body. You are aware enough now that saying that would hurt their feelings or would leave them to protest it isn't so. 


And you don't want to argue right now. 


Everything you thought was forever is now gone. 



Widow: Old English "widewe," from an Indo-European root meaning ‘be empty,' compare with Sanskrit vidh ‘be destitute,’


--> Destitute: without the basic necessities of life




And you realize: why yes, perhaps I am a widow. 




You feel empty. You feel like the basic necessity of your life has been ripped from you. It was his smile that filled your heart. You didn't realize that during this time called marriage you actually had become one. How hackneyed it sounds. How corny. But when they are gone you realize that you really were one. You know everything about them. You know what they will say, their secrets. how their heart beats, what their face feels like, and what they smell like. You know more than maybe they even knew about themselves. 




You realize all that time you thought you were two radically different people that loved each other with no rhyme or reason--you were wrong. You were actually paired together by God to complement each other and complete each other. 



And now he is gone. 



But let me tell you how you will transform because of this. 


Your husband's beautiful spirit will create a gaping hole that can never be filled. But you will start to see from the first second how friends, family, and strangers step forward and cast a string over that hole. There will be so many people that throw their string over it that soon only little cracks will be open for light to shine through. 


And while they never will cover that empty space and especially not fill the hole---you will see so much good come from everyone. 

When a tragedy strikes of course you will feel sorrow, but how could you not see the blinding light of goodness that shines from everyone? Your friends that plan the funeral in a week, your friend that drives all night from states away to be at your side, and your family that loves on your children while you choose his casket.

Your community will gather around you and lift you up in prayer. If you let them they will feed you, they will support you, and they will give you so much (emotionally, spiritually, physically) that you are left speechless. 



In your darkness, you will see so much beauty. 



God has created contrast in your life like you never had before. All you had to compare the good and the bad to was point A and point B. But now you know it goes so much deeper. 

You know what point Z is. 


Point Z is the guttural cry, the kind that takes your breath, the kind that you wish takes your breath. Point Z is your body thrown over his as they call the time of death. Point Z is when you walk out of the hospital room in a trance and curl up in ball in the walkway to the visitors' lobby. Point Z is telling your 7 year old and 4 year old they will never see their father in his body again. Point Z is realizing all the things you never said to him. Point Z is sobbing in your bed alone knowing the only person that could hold you and make you feel better is gone. Point Z is realizing half of your heart is gone and yet you can still go on--in fact, you must go on. 



One of the most beautiful things I heard was that in heaven there is a constant state of joy and peace. Whereas on Earth there is contrast. Here we experience light and darkness.

The beauty is knowing the depth and being able to compare. 


Because once you have seen darkness, you can see light so clearly. 


For me it opened my eyes. I could see tiny miracles that no one could quite believe until they were with me and experienced it themselves. 


Hummingbirds were magnetically attracted to me. Whereas before I had never seen a hummingbird by my house, they now flocked to our feeder (a gift given to us by a friend after he passed). Hummingbirds would literally sit with me while I sat outside. Butterflies appeared out of nowhere and circled the kids and me like out of a fairytale. Colorful birds I had never seen before in red, blue, and yellow would sit on my fence and sing to me like I was flipping Cinderella. Rainbows appeared, songs that were special to my husband and me would magically play. White feathers literally rained from the sky one day. God was all around me and I could feel his light and love like I never had before. I could feel my husband around me. You know that feeling--the one that tells you you are home. 


My heart was broken, but I could not for a moment deny or ignore the beauty that permeated my life. 




God is everywhere. He is in nature and in the hearts of people that surround me. 




I know that my husband is with God in heaven. I know he is at peace and full of bliss. I know that through God my husband sends me signs of his love EVERY SINGLE DAY. 



I don't like what has happened, but I can appreciate the new eyes I have been given and the depth of my heart. I am thankful for the time I had with my husband, the children we have, and how our love has changed me. 


I know God will take care of me all I have to do is trust. 


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I promise He will take care of you too. 


Love,
(from the depths of my heart)

Heatherlee

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More Posts about being a Widow:
(Posts are sequential oldest to newest)

• My First Painting Since My Life Changed
• I am Worthy of Magic (and so are you)
• ​On Balancing Letting Go and Holding On 
• Have I Changed? (you were always a butterfly)
• I Can Time Travel  (and learning how not to)
• The Truth About Fairytales  (your fairytale is NOT over)
• Broken Crystals
• Love and Life, I am Here
• My Sun Sets to Rise Again (read this post for an update of what happened 2 and a half years later) ​