What do widows want?

I can tell you that I have so much more respect and compassion for single moms than I ever have in my life. Becoming a single parent through divorce has its own unique circumstances and becoming a single parent, or an only parent through death, has its own unique circumstances as well because your childrens' father is no longer present. I often hear divorced women say to me, it would have been better if my spouse would have died. This is so heartbreaking for me to hear. I would not wish that on anyone, especially my children.

I acknowledge that often women become single mothers, not by their own choice, but because we have a crisis in fatherhood, or manhood, as I like to say. I pray for single mothers often. I don't want to discount that in any way. This particular blog is for widows and our unique circumstances, but may speak to other single moms as well.

So, what do widows want? I can tell you first, what THIS widow does NOT want. I do not want pity. I may have had a lot of pity parties for myself in the first few years after the loss of my husband, and can still have the occasional one, even almost nine years later.

However, I do not want pity from anyone else. This is my mud puddle to splash in and when I am done "getting dirty", I take a shower, the sun dries up my puddle, and I carry forward. Perhaps this is my attitude because I am a bit of a control freak. I know what I need and pity does not make the list. However, compassion most certainly does.

I remember about eight months after my husband passed away, I had to fire up the snowblower for the first time. Most widows know that even though you are still heavily grieving at this point, the world has already moved on. I was up at five AM (like my husband would do) and I went to the garage to try to figure it out. I had used the snowblower periodically but I was not usually the one to start it. That morning I struggled for quite a while as I watched my neighbors snow blowing their long driveways. Our driveways were not your typical two car length driveways. Now, I bet you are thinking I would have loved one of those men to snow blow my driveway as well. Well, of course I would have. But, what I really needed was someone to show me how to start it. I needed to be able to do this myself or at least learn how to do it.

This morning, almost nine years after my husband's passing, I woke up to a heavy downpour of rain. The first thing I thought about before I got out of bed was, darn, I wanted to put some grass seed down last night in some of the bare spots on my little condo lawn and I didn't do it. The first thing I should have done this morning was to thank God for my blessings and I usually do, but not this morning. It was the second thing I did. Yes, this is a true story...worrying about grass seed!! My sister widows, you may have not woke up thinking about this, but I guarantee, you woke up to your own "grass seed" moment.

Right now, there are widows waking up to much more difficult situations than snow blowers and grass seed. You are thinking about a child's health issue, financial concerns, regrets, depression, selling the house, loneliness, balancing only parent life and work, trying to get two kids to two different activities today, exhaustion, or maybe a big decision that you have to face alone. I am sure you have added other items to this list in your mind.

So, back to the original question...what do widows want? They want and need understanding. They need a safe place to grieve, they need a community that can surround them with compassion, not pity. They need to talk to other widows that can share stories, advice and compassion.

This fall, my sisters, you will see this all coming together so that if you need to voice your snowblower and grass seed moments, or you need to voice a bigger issue such as grieving children, or your own health issues, you will have a safe place to do so. Stay tuned my sisters in widowhood. I am praying for all of us!

Forget about snow blowers and grass seed and all these other things today and thank God for the little blessings. For just a moment, turn off your mind and be present. It will do your soul good.