When my late husband passed away, everything felt like a complete nightmare. I could not understand why this situation was happening to me. Why did God allow me to have 3 additional children with my late husband, only for him to pass away when they were all under the age of 5. Ages 5, 2 and 1 years old to be exact. My daughter just turned 1 about a month before, and my late husband had the nerve to leave us 1 week after his birthday and 1 week before fathers day. June was a hard month for so many years.
But as I started to look outside of myself and put away the “what ifs” and the “why me’s” I started to realize I had been given a gift. I had a great marriage and an awesome best friend. Some people haven’t even had the chance to experience that. It was then that I knew I needed badly to change my perspective on life after he passed.
But how?
First I had to realize, I am not what happened to me. Or what happened to him.
Yes – my world got flipped upside down. Yes, the carpet was pulled out from under me. Yes, I was lost, yes I was hurt, yes, I felt so many things, I still feel so many things, depending on the day you ask me about it.
But – I was still here.
So, was I going to die inside while still living on earth? What would happen to my children if I allowed myself to sulk in my misery?
Don’t get me wrong, there were days…. Many days where I took the opportunity to do just that. Cry. Sulk. Feel terrible for myself, for days at a time.
It’s unavoidable. There are triggers. Grief comes and goes like a wave in the ocean. Some days it’s calm and smooth, other days it’s rocky. Other days the waves are still.
In order to get to the point where there are more still waters then rocky, you have to allow yourself to grieve, while also choosing to move forward. When you are able, make a choice for yourself to let go of what you think happened to you.
Just simply say to yourself – “I am not what happened to me. (…Or to her, or to him)”
When you make this choice, you will still have bad days. On those days, remind yourself – you are not what happened to you.
Let me tell you why.
You are still alive.
You still have breath in your body.
Your heart still beats.
You have an experience that the world needs to hear about.
You are human. And if you can’t do anything else, know that you are strong because you endured through something that most people could not even understand, or fathom.
But at the same time, there are others who will relate to you, because they too have gone through what you once thought could never happen to you. It happened to them.
I remember, 2 months into my grief, a friend told me about this conference that another widow was having and invited me to go. There was a panel of young women that had all lost their husbands at some point in their lives. They all were telling the various stories on how they lost their spouses. And I thought to myself, how can I get to that point?
How can I get to the point where I can tell my story without crying through it?
I am here to tell you that I can now tell my story mostly without crying and appreciate what I have gone through. At one point, I was not sure it would be possible. But I knew I wanted to live past the grief. So in the hard moments, I reminded myself, You are not what happened to you.
If I can get to this point, you can too, if just like a Daisy – you remain open to the possibilities.
– Daisy
