When I’m not filling up my time entertaining two kids, cleaning or taking care of all the other household duties I find I stop and feel really fucking scared.  How am I going to do this?  What will my life be like?  Will I go through the next 60+ years just running around and never feeling happy again?  When will this dark, dreary cloud leave my side?

How am I going to make all the right decisions?  When I screw up who will help me pick up the pieces?

Can I find happiness that will last longer than half a day?  Can I find a place where I want to be in the world?  

So many unknowns, so many questions…

As I was eating breakfast this morning I was thinking about all of the new experiences I have had as a new widow.  

Let’s start with the positives… Yes, I still look for some form of positivity in the shit world that I now live in.

I have accomplished running my first half marathon.  No I never ran in my life before but it seems I have some anger issues that help me to run two hours and forty-six minutes.  

I have spent more time with my girlfriends and have even made some new friends!  I’m enjoying the girl time yet resent them when they bitch about their husbands.

I’ve now taken some trips to California, Vegas, and the Dominican Republic.

I tiled my master bathroom with the help of a good friend.  I’m still acting as the General Contractor finishing our unfinished house.

Other enjoyments to becoming a widower are my new enemies and my new accomplishments:

Power tools —  I have now hung curtain rods, numerous picture frames and next on the list will be towel bars.

In the midst of cooking, cleaning and oh yes grieving, I have now gotten to use the above tool more than once to tighten training wheels, seats and whatever else has fallen off of my son’s bike.

Do you know what this is?  

It is my husband’s 20 gallon air compressor that is noisy as shit.  And I figured out how it worked when I decided to buy a $30 pool for my backyard.  My counselor told me I should find a way to incorporate water fun in my backyard since that was something my kids and husband and I enjoyed so much.  I’m still trying to figure out if the $30 pool really compares to the 21′ Sea Ray we had on the river.  The kids seem to be okay with it so I guess I shouldn’t resent the fact that it is one more thing I do not do anymore.

My next big purchase this summer was a new lawn mower.  Yes my beloved “Yardman” with electric start.  The key works great when you have the battery charged…hence that has only been once so far this summer.  So I’ve had to pull that stupid cord thing.  One time my neighbor “man” had to walk to my house and start it.  The other times after about 10 pulls and a lot of swear words followed by a few kicks I got it started on my own.  Success–lawn has been mowed.  No edging done though I’m too scared of the weed whacker thing.  I’m sure my new neighbors behind me are not appreciating my uneven lines and long grass around the fence and every other area I can not cut with the mower.  Of course they bag their grass clippings, and cut at a perfect diagonal.  Fuck em!

Do you think Sears could change this to CRAFTSWOMAN?  I think I’m doing pretty good at being crafty since my husband passed away.  After all how many women can work the above tools, make a decent meal, take care of two small children, clean, do laundry, run a 1/2 marathon, finish completing a bathroom, staircase, painting, and still read a god damned love story at the end of the day.

If Rosie can do it I think I can too!  Even if I do not want to.  

This is my new family motto!!!

Why is it that when my husband was alive I was always so tired.  He never slept more than five hours a night.  I always went to sleep before ten while he sat on the couch watching movies.  He would also always wake up in the early morning hours and get his coffee and read.  I of course slept in as long as possible.  I think he was annoyed with me because I wanted my sleep.  

Now he is gone and I find myself staying up until 12 or 2 am.  Why?  I went to bed at 11 last night but now I’m up at 3:30 in the morning.  I’m still tired but can not sleep.

Sorry hon, I wish I would have stayed up with you at night.  I wish I would have enjoyed waking up with you earlier on the weekends to start our day.  I wish now I could be with you.

Ten months and one day since my husband left for a typical day at work.  We were happy about his new job assignment because he was located close to home and it was going to be a three year project.  He worked in construction so this was great news!  

I will never forget the call I received around noon that day…My husband had been severely burned and was in ICU.  Exactly two weeks of hope, positive results, and determination all taken away in a matter of minutes after an emergency surgery.  The doctor had been in the waiting room when his pager had gone off.  He was telling me the surgery had gone well and that my husband would be back in his room soon.  For some reason I knew that when the Doctor got the page that it was not good.  Why did I suspect that?  He said that the nurses were trying to revive my husband.  He left the room and I ran out of the waiting room and paced.  I do not usually pray but I must have said a million Our Father’s.  Sometimes I think really stupid thoughts that my husband died that evening because I couldn’t exactly remember how to say the prayer.  

When the doctor entered the waiting room he just shook his head and I collapsed.  I was crying and shaking my head no.  I have no idea how long I sat in the fetal position on the floor of the waiting room.  I briefly remember my parents hugging me, my mother-in-law crying by a chair.  I know I felt sick and had to be pushed in a wheelchair to a room in the basement of the hospital to say my goodbyes to my husband.  I remember 20+ relatives watching me and crying.  

I won’t go into the details of saying goodbye, it is somewhat personal and also fucking weird to be with the dead body of someone you loved.  It is indescribable and yet seems at the time to not even be real.  

more later…have children to take care of

Everywhere there is beauty to be found.  Sometimes I can see it, feel it, and even express it.  Other times I feel like the world is a horrible place to be.  A place where things happen for no reason.  What is the point I ask?

How do I move forward and enjoy the beauty in life?  I have a lot to be thankful for…I have two beautiful children.  A neighborhood filled with caring, loving people.  A safe place for my children to grow, a beautiful house filled with many comforts.  I have many friends who have given me the needed love and support to get through my days.  I have wonderful parents that have helped me more than I can ever repay.  Yet I still am sad, and hopeless at times.  My best friend, the man I admired so much is no longer with me.  The man I married because I knew he would love me and never leave me.  A man with integrity, drive, ambition, confidence.  A man who needed me as much as I needed him.  

My husband,  the man I thought I would grow old with because we had something that I knew others did not.  How do I move forward?  How do I accept a life that I now have when I already had what I wanted.  

I find every day is a struggle to look for hope, to look for a new life.  How do I raise my children with the values instilled in my husband that I so admired.  How do I pass on his way of thinking, his passion, his desire to accomplish his dreams.  How do I find happiness again and honor his life?

I’m 30, single and widowed…dealing with more than the average married couple with children.  I’m changing every day, I’m setting goals, I’m remembering more than I wish and forgetting things I never thought I would.  

I hope my story helps someone else, I hope it helps me…