Widowhood

So. I'm off work on sick leave. Again I have found my inner self being in conflict with my work self. Stress and anxiety. How to cope? Small steps forward led me back to an activity that had been a joy to me throughout my life. I've rediscovered my love of reading. I joined the Galway City Library recently. For free. Hundreds of books from A to Z. I was going to substitute a novel instead of doing more therapy. I was taking a big chance but it's working.

Yesterday I was a wife. Today I am a widow. Yesterday I had a life. Today I do not know what I have, where I am, or who I am. I do normal stuff. I do not cry. I get up and behave quiet as I always do. I wash, dress, make our bed, it is less disturbed than usual. The pillows on my side bear the imprint of my head but the other pillows are fat and plump. Down stairs I boil the kettle, take down two cups and put the teabags into them – make the tea and bring it to the table. I sit in my chair and stare. I stare at the nothingness before me. My neighbour calls in and sits in the empty chair. He called in last week and discussed his new purchase with my husband Tony, a new vehicle. My husband wished him well with it. A customer of mine poked her head into the kitchen “are you measuring him up Tommy” – the two men laugh, I laugh, Josephine laughs. Tommy is an undertaker, its his job and he does it well.

For those widowed young, life after the children leave can stir a quieter kind of grief—subtle, reflective, and not always easy to explain. After years of parenting alone, the silence can feel unfamiliar. But in this new chapter, there is also space for reconnection, gentle self-discovery, and hope for what still lies ahead.

Helping Children Cope with Grief by Rosemary Wells When my husband passed away suddenly in a traffic accident, I was faced with the terrible task...

Everybody’s grief is personal to them, and everybody grieves differently. There isn't a template, and there is certainly no handbook that will guide you.

I'm trying so hard to make sense of my World. This post may be an exercise in naval gazing. I make no apologies for that fact. Definitely a deep, dark look at the way I now view the world. There are plenty of opinions and advice given to us when we are bereaved: You'll get over it. Time heals all sadness. You'll find someone else. You've got to get on with things. You should be better by now surely?

Raging against the dawn. Why now? Why me? I’m overwhelmed and feeling angry just about everything. I can’t understand why I’m so angry with life? It’s six years later after the death of my husband I am angry beyond any bounds every day and often at night. I am twisted with rage against the world. Can’t understand why this is happening now after all this time. My therapist advised me to let my feelings out. Free them and they would set me free. I answered by saying I was not an angry person. I accepted the trials that life put in front of me. I was a world class avoider of all things menacing and confrontational.

Last Will and Testament of a Lover – by Clifford Ellis I found this book in the first few weeks after my husband’s death when...

When my husband was in ICU I would come home from the hospital feeling tired and wired up too. So, sleep was out of the question as my mind was wandering around the world and back. So much information and anxiety! The house was eerily silent compared to the whirr and click of the machines which were keeping my husband alive. Having decided to go to bed I switched on the TV to watch BBC and Sky News. After a few nights I realised that if I left the news programme on but decreased the volume then I would drift off into a peaceful enough sleep. I finally got into that sort of routine at night. Listening to news presenters was an ideal but weird kind of sleeping tablet. During the day I would drive into the hospital to meet the ICU teams and visit Dave. It was difficult to see him there in a coma and hooked up to machines. He was just a shell of a man or so I thought.

After years of dreading sunny days and silent weekends, our Guest Writer kindly shares how something has quietly shifted. In this gentle reflection, she describes how spring light, birdsong, and a moment in the garden revealed not just change but the beginnings of peace.