Really Real Widow Post

Today on Facebook memories it told me that it had been 3 years since Parker broke her ankle.

That doesn’t feel right.

Because it feels like I’ve been in this life, my new normal, for longer than that.

Just two nights ago I was sitting at my desk, in the house alone, ugly crying because I never really got to say goodbye (oh look, tears in the corner of my eyes again), but at the same time, it feels like forever ago that she left.

At one point, when Wonder Woman and I met, I would say that we needed to leave space in our relationship for Ghost Wife.  And we DID, because I was still married to her in every way.  I still called her my wife at that point and now it feels strange to say wife instead of late wife and I think my brain has accepted that she’s gone.

I made the statement the other night that we no longer need to leave room for her, but we will always need to leave room for my grief, and I think that’s a very different place for me to be.

I can’t believe it was only 3 years ago that Parker tripped on the front step and fractured the tiniest of a piece of bone off her ankle, and it lead to a series of events that changed my life so drastically.  Her broken ankle played so much into those final weeks.

But so much time has passed since then.  And not just time.  So much of my life has passed since then.  I’ve lived more in the almost two and a half years since she’s died than I did in the 10 years leading up to that.  It’s probably why it seems like so long ago.

But this is healthy.

I don’t think time heals all wounds.  That’s not a very nice way of putting that, especially to people who are new to grief.  Time doesn’t make it easier because when it hits me and I’m sobbing and ugly crying it still hurts as much as it did the first month, maybe even more because I don’t have shock as a buffer.

But time gives me space between those horrible moments, and I can live a really full life in that space.  Actually, I have to live a really full life in that space.

But this really full life means that this new normal feels like it’s filled up an entire lifetime already.  I’ve lived such an amazing life in just a couple of short years and I’m so thankful for that.

And I’m also crying, because Parker spent her last 6 months with a broken ankle, with very little joy, and she deserved to see this side of life too.

Sometimes I still feel like I’m living for both of us, but I try not to, because that’s an awful lot of burden to carry.

Widowing isn’t always easy.