The Thing About Being A (Relatively) Young Widow

 So, here’s the thing about being a (relatively) young widow. There’s a good chance that, as time passes and life keeps moving, there will be a new love. If somebody was in love (I was), built a beautiful life with the one they loved (I did) and then lost that love to death, there’s usually a longing to have that again - not the exact same life because every love story and every relationship is different, and if I’m trying to replicate the first story, maybe it’s too early to start a new one.  What I mean is that there’s a longing to be loved again and to love someone, care for them, be each other’s person(s), especially if it seems like there’s plenty of time left for that to happen again. In a ‘perfect’ world, (minus the part where anybody dies at all) this would never be an issue - people would fall in love and stay that way for 70 years until they both die...peacefully...in their sleep...at the exact same time. Or there’s the Hallmark movie way where the first love does die, but then enters the new love and the devastation is wrapped up in a neat little package and everyone lives happily ever after. In reality, life is messy, death is messy, and love is messy.  There’s no such thing as a clean break or a fresh start when it comes to bridging the gap between what was and what will be. I like order and I like peace. Clear endings and beginnings. A straightforward label for myself and predictable feelings to follow that. Ideally, I should either be a full-time, lifelong widow or somehow erase the 20 years before he died, never to mention my marriage or my late husband again.  It feels disingenuous to combine the two identities and be a widow-seeking-new-love. As if I’m a ‘bad’ widow if I’d like to find somebody else to love or I’m bad at moving forward if I also look back sometimes. For the record, I need to be clear that I doubt anyone expects things to be this cut and dried for me. This is my own neurotic need for order and control. My need to have some sense of organization in the middle of feelings and circumstances that I can’t control. I’ve been a widow for almost 9 years now. My life has changed in lots of ways in the last 9 years. I have changed in lots of ways in the last 9 years. I spent a good part of the first couple of years ONLY wanting my old life back and wanting my first love back. At some point, though, I wanted to start a new life and hopefully find new love. It didn’t and doesn’t mean that I forgot about my first love, but I’m still alive and I was done with clinging tighter to death than to life. Moving forward was (and is) a big mixed up ball of messy, exciting, scary, sad, hopeful, unpredictable, growth-inducing, funny, difficult, awkward, confusing, happy, exhausting, surprising… you get it.  All the feelings.  I would love for this life to be a neat little package with no loose ends or painful reminders of what ended but that’s not gonna happen. The old gets mixed in with the new and the pain of yesterday sometimes pushes its way into the beautiful things that have begun. I loved Dan. He was a wonderful husband and a wonderful father. I did not want to lose him. Our 29th anniversary is on Monday. It’s sad that he died and that we only made it to 20 years.  It’s sad that his children will not know him as adults and that memories are what they have left of him. Sweet memories, but just memories. I will never ever forget him. And at the very same time, I am in love again.  I miss my new love, too, because he’s been deployed for almost 6 months and is coming home this month. That makes me so happy.  So, at the very same time, I’m sad and happy. It’s possible and it happens and I’m going to give myself permission to feel both and not apologize for either.   Anyway, the chances are that the only one I’m apologizing to is myself because my old love would want me to be happy, my new love is incredibly gracious, understanding and confident that I love him,  and all of the other people in my life think way less about this than I do.  So, Happy Anniversary, Dan. We loved each other so well in the 20 years we had and I’m proud of us for that. And come home soon, Frank. I love you and can’t wait to see you again.