Growth.

(Our final vacation together as a family. One year to the month of his passing. So thankful for this time.)

I suppose that is what it’s called. It sounds so positive. And it is. Except the growth I’ve experienced was forced on me when my husband died.

This person I have become is not who I was eighteen months ago.

(Adding another month every thirty days or so is strange — how did it go from “I am a new widow”to where I am now — more seasoned, more experienced if you will even though it is still “new” — such a contradiction of sorts that is misunderstood unless you have lost a spouse, a partner).

My story starts thirty-six months ago when life was carefree. I had just come back from a glorious week in London visiting a good friend. It was my first time in England and I was still on a high but also so happy to be back home with my guy, when he was diagnosed quite by accident.

I’ll never forget the look on his face that night in the emergency room. I’ll never forget the panic that ensued. But we had time. We still lived our life the way we had been doing even if it was a bit different.

Life threw us a curveball, one that we were managing together. We started weekly treatments and drives into the city for procedures. Doing what we had to do so he could live as long as possible with a disease that wouldn’t stop ceasing to exist until he took his last breath. But I rarely allowed my brain to go there. To go to that dark place called “What Happens When…?”

…until I had no choice. Because the disease we fought so hard to control, took over. It won. We waved the white flag of surrender. He took his last breath. And that day was the day I had to become someone else.

It was rocky at first — getting to know this new me. I was not a fan of her in the beginning. This new person was literally thrown into adulthood. To not refer to myself as an “adult” at the age of fifty-six is ridiculous, I know. But I led a pampered life.

My husband took care of me (just to be clear, I was not “kept” — there’s a difference). My mother used to jokingly refer to me as a 1950’s housewife. Maybe I was in a sense. I happily went along with it. I didn’t have to, but I enjoyed the carefree life my husband afforded me. I should be embarrassed but I’m not. I was blissfully unaware of the dangers of the world.

My husband did most of the heavy lifting so I could sleep at night. So I could continue to live my life in the carefree way I was accustomed to.

In a nutshell, he spoiled me. In retrospect I feel guilt about it, pushing all the stressors onto him, but that’s a story for another time.

Life went and changed the plan. He died. His dying was just as against his will as me growing up was against mine. But it happened and there was no way getting around it.

And so, eighteen months ago started a new journey. A new path. A new way of living. Not what I wanted, but I have come to embrace this new me. If we take away the fact that the love of my life died, was ripped away forcing me into widowhood right in the middle of what was becoming the best part of our lives, I would be proud of who I am now.

For this new person — woman — is someone who is completely unrecognizable. She wears a new mask. She is responsible, she is learning new skills, she is an experienced widow with a ridiculous amount of knowledge on the subject. She has become a person other widows lean on for support and guidance.

She is an adult. A real, live, functioning adult living with hard and big emotions and responsibilities she never felt or assumed before in her life.

I believe he is watching, is here with me at every step. And I can say without uncertainly that he is proud of who I am now. Who I have morphed into. I often joke that he would love this new me. But that’s the part that breaks my heart the most — the fact that he can’t enjoy this woman I am now. Because she wasn’t born until a late, warm August evening of 2023.

To sound like an angsty teenager, “I didn’t ask to be born,” yet here I am. No longer a 1950’s housewife. But rather a woman who is managing a life all on her own. And after much trial and error, doing a pretty damn good job.