There's a strange phenomenon that happens to far too many of us young widows.
In the early days of grief, we receive an outpouring of pity and support. People rightly understand that our hearts have been shattered by the loss of a spouse decades before we even reach middle age. They see us at a graveside with our young children in tow and feel deep sorrow for us.
Our loss is so jarring that we get more support at first than many older widows whose needs are most often left to the care of grown children. Our children are far too young to do anything to help us (and it would be radically inappropriate to expect it of them) so family, friends and neighbors help out. They provide meals, childcare, playdates and other things to help us survive the early days of grief.
Eventually, most of the help goes away. People move back to focusing on their own lives or have other friends and family who are facing more recent tragedies and need help. Meanwhile, we widows grieve deeply, for far longer than any expects, while slowly watching the life we had with our spouse crumble around us until we are forced to either give up or start building something new.
By God's grace, many of us start the rebuilding process. One decision and one day at a time.
It's in this new rebuilding phase that the criticism often comes. It seems that some people are okay with a broken-hearted widow (at least for a short time, maybe 3-12 months) and some are okay with what they assume to be a "strong" widow (who, they assume with great relief, doesn't need their help anymore), but what they aren't comfortable with is a changed widow.
They see her changing and don't understand why, so they start to question her decisions. They question her financial decisions and make assumptions about how she's making ends meet, they question her parenting decisions (not realizing she's having to learn a totally new way of parenting and that her kids have also deeply changed), they question her relationship decisions (not wanting her to date or wondering what's wrong with her because she isn't dating) and some even go so far as to question if she really loved her spouse when he was alive.
What the criticizers don't seem to understand is that the widow has to change. In fact, she's already changed long before anyone recognizes it. The day her husband's soul left his body, she was fundamentally changed at her core, never to go back to being the same person again. She was lost in a fog of grief and seemed like a sadder version of herself to everyone else, but she was actually becoming a different self. She was part of a unit that is gone and the parts of her and her life that were unique to the dynamics that relationship slowly begin to change.
But it takes her a long time to realize it. First she must grieve the loss of her spouse... then the loss of their life together...and finally, the loss of the her old self.
It is terrifying to let go of the life you wanted and start to embrace the life you have instead. It feels wrong to let go of the person you were with your spouse and become the person you need to be on your own. But young widows must do these things. They must keep living and the only way to live is to keep moving forward.
So when you see a widow changing, and you don't understand why, know that at the deepest level it's because her husband died. She didn't choose it. She can't change it. All she can do is adapt to the life that she has now.
I promise you, she is doing her best. Even if you don't understand.
Comments