Being first is not always best

I would not wish what I have had to go through on anyone. Yet, the likelihood is that at minimum, 50% of my friends will (or have) experience the loss of a spouse. My closest girlfriends are all just a wee bit older than me. In high school they got to drive, date, wear makeup, vote and then later legally drink, all before I did. I've never, ever been the first. Until now. And it breaks my heart. When I think about how my friend +Joni Furlong, widowed for almost 10 years, just showed up at my door the day Jim died, the knowing look in her eyes, her arms and heart wide open... I am grateful yet saddened. When she lost her husband I had no idea what that meant. Now she was comforting me in a way few could, because she knew. We were now sisters.  

After Jim died, I sought out people who had survived the loss of a spouse, and often they sought me out.  In addition to Joni, my Aunt Gladys, widowed over 15 years and never remarried, also showed up on my doorstep that day. 'How," I begged her to tell me, "did you ever survive even this day? How did you keep on breathing?"  A few days later, I visited the beach where Jim and I had married. Another friend, Bob, whose first wife died almost 20 years before, walked and cried with me. He knew what my road ahead would be like and it was a comfort to have him with me. He's been happily remarried for years, but still carried the pain of that loss in his heart. And he was willing to share his experiences with me. You never get over grief, you just get through it.

My sisters and brothers in widowhood were generous with their time, listening and answering my direct, and perhaps even prying questions. I remember blurting out to a colleague in the staff room one day, 'when did you stop crying every day?' I just needed reassurance that somehow I'd get through this. One day I was in the grocery store and I ran into another colleague, Ann.  I hadn't seen her since the funeral, but that day was such a blur, I hardly remember who I saw or what they said. Walking up on her in the shampoo aisle, I just broke down and cried when she asked, 'how are you?'  I knew she really meant it.  She knew the loss I felt, and  just held me and whispered in my ear, 'believe it or not, it will get easier.' These people had somehow survived what seemed impossible to endure... There was hope, even when I felt hopeless.

Someday, I will be the one to stand on a doorstep, tears in my eyes with open heart and arms, ready to be there, to know. And it breaks my heart.