Deepak Chopra M.D., author, public speaker, alternative medicine advocate, and a prominent figure in the New Age movement, says 'what you were yesterday, or an hour ago, you aren't any longer.'
When we married, I promised to love Jim for the rest of my life. I can't just turn that off. There are so many songs about how I will always love you, but what really do we mean when we say always and forever?
Jim told me he wanted me to get on with my life and find someone to love, but he didn't realize how difficult that would be. Not finding someone, but being ready to find someone. The man I love is gone, but the love remains.
Maybe it was going to my 40th high school reunion that got me wondering about all this. In day to day life, we fill out forms where they ask what our marital status. Usually, the choices are single,married or divorced. Facebook added it’s complicated, in a relationship and a few others. Ever since Jim died I have struggled with these forms. The first time I had to check widow I broke down and cried. But then there was a form that didn’t have an option for widow. It was a legal form so I had to check single and that pretty much broke my heart.
As time has passed, almost four years now, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I define myself. It makes me feel sad, but I no longer feel like I’m married, unless you can be married to a dead man. But that is hard to explain on any form. And single is not right because I’m not single!
So with a heavy heart, but a clear mind, I am ready to claim my status as a widow. I feel like this is a huge step, emotionally. I am, at my heart, ready to acknowledge something my brain has known for years. I am not who I was yesterday or an hour ago or four or thirty years ago. And tomorrow I will not be who I was today.
