Category Archives: Widowhood

Who am I?

Posted on by

Marriage is biblically described as two-becoming-one. A simple visual might be a husband and wife sharing one umbrella, huddled close, clutching the handle together. The two are together inside the one.

Widowhood is a loss of that oneness, which necessitates standing alone beneath the umbrella. That has a familiar feel to it, since independence was the starting point for all of us, but standing alone in widowhood, our umbrella isn’t as straight as it used to be. It flops side-to-side, and after managing it alone for a while, it gets very heavy.

Those of us who were married for decades find ourselves wondering what’s going to happen next. Some hurry into a second marriage, feeling lonely and uncomfortable with the mantle of singleness. Others try to turn back the clock hoping to remake youth’s decisions: a new job, new hairdo, new wardrobe.

A few risk their savings on precarious ventures in a quest for the money husbands once provided. A small number hurt so badly they burrow into widowhood as a permanent identity.

When I became a widow, wise advisers told me not to make any changes for a year. “Don’t move back to Chicago. Don’t give away Nate’s clothes. Don’t join anything. Don’t quit anything. Don’t even rearrange your furniture.”

But we widows find ourselves yearning for a revised life-purpose while still in that recommended holding pattern of preventing change. Eventually, though, the “don’ts” must morph into “do’s”. Although earthly life ended for our men when they died, it didn’t end for us, and none of us should be fooled into thinking we can stay in a partnership that is no more.

As always, we should ask God what to do next. He has a fresh start ready for each of us, a positive purpose for our remaining years, something separate from our marriages. Half-plus-half made one marriage whole, but we’re now half minus half, which is not a marriage at all. None of us wants to continue as half-a-person.

Opening ourselves to a fresh start might seem scary because we love the familiar, but our familiar is gone. Even as I work at writing a book for the first time, I fight nervousness, because the process is unknown and untried. But God brought the opportunity after I asked “what’s next?”, so with confidence in him, I started.

None of us will ever stop missing our other halves. No new beginning can delete what we had, but living inside old memories means missing out on God’s next. Willingly walking with him into the worrisome unknown might even find us closing our umbrellas, because one day we’re going to realize the sun is out, and it’s shining brighter than ever.

“I have a lot more to tell you, things you never knew existed. This is new, brand-new, something you’d never guess or dream up. When you hear this you won’t be able to say, ‘I knew that all along.’ “ (Isaiah 48:6,7, The Message)

 

Breathing Easy

Posted on by

While driving from Michigan to the Chicago area recently, I passed a boxy-looking white truck that said, “Medical Oxygen” on its side. It brought back a rush of feelings from 21 months ago, of the day Hospice knocked on our front door with an oxygen supply for Nate.

Jack barked with vigor that day, not wanting any harm to cross our threshold. Cancer had arrived silently, colorlessly, terminally, and he was on guard. I felt the same way: “Don’t open the door! No more strangers parading through! No more medical equipment dominating the environment! No more reminders of our life-and-death battle!”

But of course Van’s Medical Supply had only come to help. I shushed Jack and nudged him aside, allowing the oxygen tanks to roll in – one, two, three, four.

The delivery man kept up a steady stream of conversation as he went in and out, a kind attempt to soothe our frayed nerves. He assured us the equipment would be easy to use while my brain screamed, “You mean Nate isn’t going to be able to breathe ?!”

The tanks were wheeled past Nate, and the man greeted our patient cheerfully, like a friend. I can’t imagine what was in Nate’s head as he contemplated needing breathing assistance, but he didn’t let the stress show.

“Where should I put these?” the delivery man said. We settled on a tight corner behind Nate’s hospital bed. I can still hear the cold clanking of the 4 green tanks as he clustered them efficiently in the small, already-crowded room. My heart hurt that day contemplating Nate’s next slip downward.

Today the oxygen tanks are gone, as is the hospital bed and every other reminder of Nate’s killer illness. Nate is gone, too, but as I drove down the highway feeling sad, God reminded me that because Nate was gone, so was his need for breathing support. The cancer is gone, too, along with severe pain and approaching death.  Our dark night did end, slowly for us and dramatically for Nate.

Today we’re steadily moving forward, edging away from those agonizing days, not with reluctance anymore but with future-focus. Although a hopeful future was always there, in the darkness we just couldn’t see it.

When God allows life’s toughest stuff to dominate us for a while, he doesn’t leave us stumbling weakly without direction or purpose. Instead he equips us daily, much like Van’s Medical supply equipped us with oxygen before Nate needed it. When the need arose, we were ready, thankful for 4 green tanks in the corner.

In a way, that’s what God wants to be for all of us in every crisis. When we trust him to equip us for what will be needed, he causes us to breathe easier, despite being surrounded by calamity.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with thee I will one will,
To do, and to endure. (Edwin Hatch)

“It is the Spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.” (Job 32:8)

Mood Lighting

Posted on by

Since Nate died, 89 Sundays have come and gone. Many have been difficult or at least a dip in my week, and I’ve learned to brace for them. Last Sunday was about a “3” on the sadness scale, not too bad, but as I worked in the basement during the afternoon, I kept all the lights on and the music upbeat.

After rearranging the storage closet and putting away the Christmas lights (7 months late), I noticed the sun setting through the small, high windows and felt myself slipping. It hadn’t helped I’d stumbled across Nate’s funeral book and also a framed drawing he’d made in kindergarten. So I stopped, sat down with the picture in my lap, and asked God what to do next.

I’ve learned that after asking, it’s important to listen, to pay attention to my next thought. And for me, coming from him, it was this: “Hang some Christmas lights.”

“Really?” I said. “I just packed them all away.”

“Really.”

Heading toward the closet, I looked for a good place to string them and decided on the main beam stretching from one end of the basement to the other. A zig-zag pattern would be festive, and small nails wouldn’t bother the thick wood.

Two hours and 67 nails later, the basement was transformed, and God, always faithful, had lifted me from a gloomy place.

Wednesday an electrician will come to revamp the electrical box in my basement. “I’ll have to shut down power to the whole house,” he said,  “so please know everything’s going to be dead all day. And since your basement will be too dark to work in, do you think a neighbor would lend you power through an extension cord?”

Since I have award-winning neighbors, I quickly said, “Yes”, and he was gone. But I stood in my twinkle-lit basement looking at the newly hung lights and thanked God for his idea. Lights are nice for all of us. They allow us to work but also give a boost as needed.

Light also keeps us from doubting what we know to be true, particularly in reference to God’s promises. It’s during the dark of night we toss and turn, worry and churn over things we can believe him for, during the day. We check the windows for dawn, watch the clock, and feel much better when the sky lightens.

God knows that. He’s the originator of light, and before he made it, everything was dark all the time (though God sees perfectly in the dark). Making light (before making the sun and moon) must have been tricky, because either it’s light or it’s dark. But leave it to God to figure out a way to divide the two and still have both.

I appreciate his lights and also my man-made Christmas lights. By the way, although I didn’t measure or count anything in advance, when I got to the end of the basement beam, I also got to the end of the lights. God had planned it perfectly.

“God separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4)