Sometimes it is just so wearying being a widow. The first year I just kept going because I had no choice. I was really the only one who could handle the paperwork changes, the setting up of  accounts, the scanning, the emailing, the phone calls. 

Now into year two and there seems to be a whole different set of challenges. I’ll be going along just fine and then WHAM! The roof is leaking in three places and I have to maneuver insurance adjusters who don’t return calls or explain things, only to find out nothing is covered. This was my husband’s  expertise; he would have known exactly how to handle it. 

The termites and rats and ants keep my pest control guy on speed dial.  My car got rear ended in a hit and run and I wanted to call my husband, just to tell him about it. To hear his concern and comfort.  

I have to decide which dishwasher to buy, how much car insurance coverage to get, where to put my money so it earns me a little bit. Even where to get my oil changed and do I need to buy a whole set of lug-nuts because they said they couldn’t get them off to rotate my tires? And I have to ask for help to hang things in these nearly 100 year old plaster walls because I don’t own a drill. I feel like a bother always asking my brother for advice and my sons for help.

There is all the contrariness of family dynamics that only he and I could talk about; I now have no one who really gets it. I just purely miss him so much.

I didn’t intend for this to sound like poor, pitiful me. It’s just my reality right now. And the reality is that widowhood isn’t just grieving. It’s learning to go on living in a different way. Yes, it’s sad and it’s hard, but I can move forward because I know Who holds my future.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.”         

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Because I have suffered, and Christ has been with me in that suffering, my hope is that I might be a comfort to someone else.

About Angie Bell

Angie Bell was born in Georgia but raised in Florida to where she recently returned after six years in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a former teacher who loves hiking, photography, and writing, often combining all three.

After planning for several years, working on a way to live on a shoestring budget, Angie’s husband of 41 years put in for early retirement so they could move back home. They put their house on the market and had a contract within four days. Less than two weeks later her husband was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. They decided to transfer his care and move back to Jacksonville, Florida, renting a furnished apartment and hoping for a miracle. One month later he was gone. After her third move in less than a year, Angie is now in Tampa where her grandchildren live, trying to find her way in her new life. God, in His mercy, has put numerous other widows in her life and a new empathy for this sisterhood she never would have chosen.