Category Archives: Widowhood

Growth Spurt

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All of us grandmas love our grands. They bring fresh energy into our aging worlds and insist on hope for the future. They also let us squeeze their beautiful baby flesh.

My five grands, age 2 and under, live many miles from me, and while we’re apart they’re growing and changing. This week I received a packet of new pictures from my daughter-in-law, Katy, sent from their home in England.

As I studied each photo, my heart ached to be with these little people. I hardly recognized Thomas and Evelyn, nearly 6 months older than when I saw them last. When you’re only 1 year old, half a year causes dramatic change.

Last night I watched a several-minute video on Facebook of my 2 Florida babies playing in the tub. Listening to Skylar sing “Old McDonald” as she poured water, oblivious to being videoed, made me want to log onto www.cheaptickets.com

If these 5 would stay the same as when I left them last, our separations wouldn’t be so bad. But they continually change in appearance and grow in skills, no matter how badly I want them to stop. Nicholas and Micah have quintupled their vocabulary, and I’ve not been there to talk with them. That hurts! The only way to cope with this disturbing phenomenon is to keep in touch as best we can and schedule times of togetherness.

From the perspective of my 5 grands, I’m not changing much. I probably seem exactly the same to them, each time we’re together, but the truth is I’m changing, too. Steadily and surely I’m accumulating more wrinkles, gaining in forgetfulness and losing in strength. As much as I’d like to halt those changes, I can’t.

So my babies are changing, I’m changing, and then there is Nate.

From an earthly perspective, he’ll be forever 64. In his absence I’ve turned 65 and soon will hit 66. Although we were always 10 days apart in age, today we’ve grown 528 days apart. He’ll stay put, and I’ll keep counting. He’ll never have gray hair or get senile. His life as Nathan Nyman is frozen in time the way I wish my grandchildren would freeze between visits and my aging would come to a screeching halt.

Of course the reality of Nate’s agelessness is that he’s actually changed more dramatically than me or any of my 5 grands. He’s brand new, glorified, radically different. If I could get a glimpse of him, I’d probably gasp in wonder. It’s encouraging to know God has promised that all of us will one day be changed in the same ways Nate has been. The clock will stop, and we’ll be glad.

But there’s a catch: we have to wait until God schedules the change, because even www.cheaptickets.com can’t make it happen.

”In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

Washed and Pressed

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All of us know we’re supposed to hold our possessions lightly, but it doesn’t come naturally. We have to repeatedly remind ourselves everything we own has come to us, in one way or another, from God.

Following this principle becomes more difficult when we’re dealing with the possessions of someone else. For example, Mary, Tom and I dismantled Mom’s apartment after she died, a strange experience with endless questions of what to do with each item. Yet it had to be done.

After Nate died, my first reaction was to leave everything as it was: the pens atop his dresser, his shoes lined-up in a row, his business suits on the closet bar. Most people don’t need someone else’s used clothing, nor do they want it. Even so, bundling it all up for charity is a bite too big for most widows to chew. And so the clothes stay put.

Today I decided it was time, at least for part of Nate’s wardrobe. His business shirts have been hanging in dry cleaner plastic for 18 months, pressed and ready to go to work. How silly to let them hang there when other workers could be wearing them.

Nate probably suffered from shirt gluttony owning 45 of them. He also collected pens, some of them antiques, some with leaks, so many of the shirts were pocket-stained. Thankfully, our church is conducting a sale this weekend, with a welcome mat out for used clothing (although not the ones with stained pockets). This moved me to release one more piece of Nate’s life.

Much of adjusting to widowhood is emotional and must be done in our heads. That means it’s not about the shirts at all but about missing the guy who was inside them. Reminding myself that he isn’t ever coming back to wear those shirts helps me let them go. I don’t want to cling to a fantasy.

A day will come for each of us when we won’t need what’s hanging in our closets. Whether we slip out of this life through illness or accident, closet contents will be far from our thoughts. And it’s a good idea now to picture others pawing through our stuff wondering what to do with it all.

There’s a passage in Scripture that’s always puzzled me. It describes God’s detailed care of those he loves, including provision of clothes, and not just any clothes but spectacular ones. Yet many in this world are wearing rags, which doesn’t jive with the story. (Luke 12)

But Jesus was probably referring to our new paradise-clothes, garments with an other-worldly dazzle we can’t yet picture. Nate didn’t take anything with him when he left, but as he met Jesus, a new wardrobe awaited him, and none of it had pocket-stains.

Leaking ink and every other life-stain had been washed away by the blood of Jesus.

“Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from Jesus Christ… him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” (Revelation 1:4,5)

Tantalizing Fantasizing

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Every widow friend of mine has wished her husband could come back, if only for a few minutes. We’ve all fantasized about how we would greet them, what we’d say, how we’d show love. Such a scenario is as captivating as a first date, and although we all know it can’t be, thinking about it is delicious.

This morning I was pondering the biblical Lazarus, a friend Jesus often stayed with between destinations. He enjoyed time with this pal and his two sisters, probably relaxing around a lamp-lit wooden table, telling of his travels. These four singles were close in heart and surely had fun together, too. Scripture twice says Jesus loved them.

When Lazarus got sick, the grieving sisters did what came naturally: they got word to Jesus. But Lazarus died before he could get there.

When Jesus finally came, Mary, Martha and a crowd of mourners had been grieving for four days. No doubt the sisters were thinking, “Oh, how we want our brother back, even for just a few minutes. He left so quickly we couldn’t even get Jesus here in time. If only we could talk with him again, hold onto him, somehow prevent his death.”

When Jesus arrived, Martha raced out to meet him with the same wish my widow friends and I have. “Jesus, you can do whatever you want! You could bring him back!” Although I haven’t met Martha, I know what she was thinking: “If you bring him back, you can heal him, and then he won’t have to die!”

But Jesus responded conservatively, reminding Martha that Lazarus would rise eventually. That wasn’t good enough for her, though. I picture her tugging on his arm, bouncing up and down saying, “Yes, yes, I know, but you know what I mean!”

Jesus calmly asked if she truly believed he was the way to heaven, and she says, “Yes, of course! I believe you! But…”

Racing back to the house, she grabs Mary and excitedly says, “Jesus is here! Hurry up!”  And it’s Mary’s turn to rush out. While weeping, she voices the same longing as Martha but in a different way. “You could have prevented this! And you should have!”

Amazingly, Jesus gave the sisters what they wanted: their brother back.

What was life like for these siblings after that? Martha and Mary probably didn’t take their eyes off Lazarus, couldn’t stop asking questions. Most likely they touched him, took his hand, hugged him, told him they loved him, until he had to say, “Ok, girls. Enough already!”

I’ll bet they loved their brother with a nearly perfect love after having lost him, then gotten him back. How blessed they were with that rare opportunity to love flawlessly the second time around. And that’s what my widow friends and I long for, too, though we know it won’t happen for us.

But if wives could just get that second-chance love figured out the first time around, marriages could be radical examples of what God originally had in mind for husbands and wives.

Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43)