Widows are the Ginger Rogers of Grievers: We Do it All Backwards and in High Heels

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” ~ James 1:27

As a widow, I feel like the Ginger Rogers of grievers. I do it all backwards and in high heels. (Fred Astaire was acclaimed for his dancing ability, but someone once pointed out that his dance partner, Ginger Rogers, was the more talented: she did it all backwards and in high heels. If you get a chance, treat yourself to a YouTube of them dancing. They were amazing!)

Please do not misunderstand: I’m not saying that widows grieve ‘more’ than anyone else. We ALL grieve our losses! There isn’t a barometer for discerning grief. I’m just saying that the multitude of enormous tasks that go along with losing a life partner are piled ON TOP of the widow’s grief. I’ve lost both my parents and friends, a cousin, and other relatives over the years, and the grief comes because the love is deep. It’s bittersweet.

Someone once told me that “grief is love with no place to go.” And, that is so true!

(Side note: I believe that parents who grieve their children have a special blessing in Heaven. I’ve seen close friends lose their children and it’s horrific. Their hearts are ripped out.)

When you’re a widow, you grieve…PLUS there’s a laundry list of things to do—think of Santa’s long list trailing off into the distance. You’ve been suddenly promoted to the role of Head of Household while you lost your best support person who did half the stuff, stuff you may have no idea how to handle.

You learn it of course, because you have to, and you have to learn it FAST! You have to find the passwords, and figure out how he paid the bills (and each has a unique, jaw-dropping method), and where the investments are held. You have to contact the life insurance companies to get money to pay for food and utilities and the mortgage. You have to contact his employer for his final paycheck and find out if they’ll be paying him his final bonus and vacation pay. You have to return his work laptop, and for me, this was two of them, one to his employer and one to the company where he subcontracted (they asked for his badge, too). You have to figure out COBRA and medical insurance, and college savings plans, and cell phone plans with one less person, and get cable again because the house is too darn quiet. You have to remember to change the air filters in both the house and the vehicles, and give the dogs their heartworm meds, and turn back on the alarm system that you cancelled to save money because now you don’t feel as secure in your home as before…when he was there. (I have a gun by my bedside in a fast-opening gun safe, too, just fyi.) You have to pay the taxes and medical bills that tallied up while they were trying to save his life.

Reminder: I’m still grieving while I’m doing all of this!

There’s the final arrangements to make. You have to make all the funeral plans on your own because your kids are too young, and if you have a few friends to step in and help you with it, you’re blessed (I was!). You have to figure out how to put a stop on his credit to prevent fraud, and contact social security—and why is my appointment 3 months out? Seriously. Just so I can notify them about his death and get my $255 that everyone gets? smh.

And, then you worry about your kids and their futures. They are grieving at an age too young to lose their daddy, and it sucks for them! I am actually more grief-stricken for them than I am for me. My own daddy is gone, but he died when I was married with kids. I didn’t need him like my kids still need their daddy. It sucks to be together and see the empty place at the table or empty place in the car or couch. I’m so sad for my kids. We moms know the heartache of hearing your babies cry in their rooms and knowing that there’s nothing you can do to make it better. I’m gutted for them! But, I pick up the pieces of my own heartache and try to make things as normal as possible for them. My daughter’s birthday was less than a month after we lost him, and I tried my best to make it special. But there was a notable absence.

I try to take care of my teens the best I can. I let them have their time and their space, and I try to say yes as much as possible, because why not? I cook meals I know they will enjoy. I buy treats I know they like. I do their laundry and clean the house and take out the trash because imposing chores on them just seems cruel. I find them classes to take and give them tips on job leads. My son found a job working at a Christmas tree lot and he loves it. We’re not getting a tree this year because that was always what my daughter and husband did together. I didn’t even pull down the Christmas decorations. I went to Target and bought a few holiday things to put around. Things without memories. And, I ask them out to dinner, one at a time, so there’s not that empty chair. I watch movies and TV shows with them. I try to guide them and help them navigate their own grief. They have questions, hard religious ones, and I try to point them in the right direction. My son has gone back to church on his own as he seeks his relationship with God.

Reminder: I’m still grieving while I’m doing all of this!

Then, he’s there everywhere I look. I don’t want to leave home, but everywhere I turn, there he is. His last dirty shirt thrown over his office chair, a purple polo he loved because it was ‘soft’. Yes, it still smells like him, but it’s fading. His messy desk is just as he left it with notes about work projects that have now moved onto another employee. I had to put his favorite coffee cup in the curio cabinet because I can’t stand to see it in the cupboard when I get coffee. I only use half the toaster in the mornings, now. And, our closet, half-filled with his shirts and shoes and workout clothes greets me everyday when I get dressed. His dresser is filled with his stuff in the drawers that I can’t even open yet. His bedside pictures and books are right where he left them. I still sleep on the right side of the bed, because that’s my spot, and even in hotel rooms it was. So, there’s the empty bed, the empty chair at the table, the empty place on the couch, his empty truck in the garage.

And, when I leave home, he’s there, too. I pass by our favorite place, or the hospital where he died, or the items in the grocery store that I no longer put in my cart: his half and half, his blue packets of sweetener, the Siracha that he put on literally everything. I’m even driving the car he bought as his commuter car that now he doesn’t need. I used to drive his truck around town on my errands, and our son has my old car and we bought our daughter a little runabout.

He was just there, and now he’s not.

Then, you have to reinvent yourself! I’m not joking. You have to create a completely new identity and new life without him in it. And, it’s hard when he was the gregarious one, and he was the master chef, bon vivant and host. You were his sidekick and he was the main attraction. You can’t be a sidekick on your own, you need a star. There’s no Ethel without Lucy, no Samwise without Frodo. You have to find your place in the world as the person you’ve now become. You have to figure out a new future and a new plan for the rest of your life. What are you going to do for the coming years, with a decade sitting in front of you before retirement? Then, what are you going to do for retirement? Everything you talked about and dreamed about is gone. There won’t be the sabbatical in Lucerne. There won’t be the townhouse by the beach. Or, maybe there will be, but it won’t be the same because he won’t be there with you. The future lacks the hopes and dreams that you once shared. You’re faced now with only a blank canvas for you to paint on your own. So, you have to grab the paintbrush.  

Reminder: I’m still grieving while I’m doing all of this!

And, if you’re in a situation like me, you also need to find a new career and go back to work full time. You might, like me, need to take additional training, because let’s face it, he was the primary bread earner and I raised the kids. It’s been a long time since I worked for a company and I don’t even know the names of the new software programs let alone how to use them! So, I enroll in classes, and learn the things, then off to work I go!

Now, we are really, really lucky, because a lot of widows can’t afford to keep living in their homes or in their communities. They have to move. And, on top of all the other stuff I’ve talked about here, I can’t imagine how devastating that is, to try and pack up and give away way before you’re ready to do so. And, find a new home and move all the stuff and learn a new community and get a new network of people. That’s simply cruelty piled on top of everything else.

In this widowhood, I thought that there would be more assistance…I don’t know from where. And, I don’t know why I feel that way. I feel like there needs to be a program for this, some sort of a non-profit that guides widows along the path. My grief-stricken brain doesn’t work that well, and navigating all of these tasks is really hard. I’ve got what they call “widow fog.” It’s hard to think clearly, but I have to push through because things have to get done.

My Bible study this morning spoke to that. I’m going through Rick Warren’s Daily Devotional on bible.com and today he talked about “Do Something About That.” He says, one key to discovering your destiny is to identify the needs that stir your heart. What is it that upsets you? What causes you to think, “Somebody ought to do something about that?” Whatever it is, that is the key to your destiny. His wife, Kay, calls it being seriously disturbed. It bothers you so much that it moves you to action.

So what am I seriously disturbed about? I’m seriously disturbed that widows aren’t being taken special care of by the church despite what the Bible says. I’m seriously disturbed there isn’t a special program for widows that helps them navigate the overwhelming amount of chores and paperwork thrown on our plates.

What widows need: Assistance with the heaping pile of tasks. What we get: “Everyone grieves, you’re not special.”

Widows don’t want to be treated special. We just want acknowledgement that maybe it’s not the same as losing your parent as an adult because there’s so much more that’s required of us. We want help with the paperwork and government agencies and insurance companies and maybe someone to guide us through all the tasks we don’t even know that we need to do. We want someone to say, “I know it’s hard, and I know you need help beyond a grief group! I’m here for you and I can help you navigate this tornado that hit your life!” Because that’s what it feels like.

AHA! It looks as if I have found MY DESTINY! (I’ll have to research how to start a non-profit.)

That said, I’ve gotten a TON of help from my dear friends, in-laws and my sister! TONS! They’ve helped me with the funeral arrangements and all the things that went along with that: selecting the caterer, picking out the memorial plaque, sending thank you notes, planning the reception and the after reception, and going to all the meetings and filling out all the forms. My father-in-law, unable to travel, paid for it all from afar. My friends have mowed my lawn, ran errands for me, brought me groceries, did a meal train, gave me presents to comfort me, helped me sell our RV trailer, took me out for dinners and lunches, sent me texts, messages and emails, and invited me over for dinners and drinks and games. I’ve never felt so loved or cared for by my dear friends, and it still continues now four months later. My heart is full of this love!

But, I still have mountains of tasks that keep multiplying. And, I STILL have to reinvent myself.

Thankfully, I’m not completely incompetent and I can do this life on my own. I was single and independent for fifteen years before my husband and I wed and we had kids. I can take care of myself. I’m a strong woman.

Plus, I’m a child of God. GOD HAS ME! God is the reason I was upright the day after, and today, and every day He grants me in the future! GOD IS GOOD!

But, I’ve never had so much piled so high on my plate at a time when I felt least able to handle it.

I’m okay. Please don’t worry about me. I’m gonna be just fine. But, I write this because I want people to know that it’s not “just grief” for a widow.

It’s that, surely, but it’s also much, much more than that.