Browsing one of my online support groups the other day, I saw the post.
The one the new widow makes, where everything is fresh and brand new. We are able to articulate and write things out (I don’t know how), but we are still in some kind of daze.
It doesn’t feel real yet, yet it feels too real; a realness that we fear will never, ever leave us.
We wonder how we will ever feel different. We can’t imagine that we could ever possibly feel some semblance of normal ever again. We know that life will never be the same.
Maybe we don’t even remember sleeping and waking. We might not remember eating, if we even feel like doing so.
Our brain literally cannot make sense of how to go forward at this point, and we beg and plead to have something back that we will never have again.
But go forward once again, we will.
We will even smile again. We will laugh. Happiness will come to us once more.
One day we’ll wake up, and won’t feel like we just walked violently through a plate-glass window.
We’ll settle into a routine.
Before we know it, we will be spending time in one of these groups, and we’ll see this same post. We might even remember where we were when it was us typing these words into that first post.
We’ll recognize the pain – no matter how much time passes. It’s a pain we will never forget. Fortunately, though, with time, it dulls.
And now it’s our turn to offer support to the new widow, the one whose world just got toppled over.
It’s times like that when we can make something beautiful out of the horror we’ve experienced.
I am forever grateful to the online support groups who welcomed me with open arms when I was at my absolute lowest. It is my honor to offer the same to those who are just joining our ranks.
