The Present - Widowhood

I've been trying to come up with a way to define the experience, to understand my past and be ready for the future.

The world seems to have a negative view of widowhood, and being a widow.  It's a secret society or guild of sorts.  You have to give up the love of your life to join.  The recommendation process can involve being a witness to sickness, pain, and/or suffering, having to make really hard choices to end a life, or being ambushed by doctors or police or military officers with fatal news.  Your initiation ceremony is a funeral, and nobody congratulates you when it's over.  (But on the plus side there is usually lots good food at the after party.)   Instead of cryptic passwords and secret handshakes, there are the awkward "I'm SO sorry"s, hugs and that damned 'sympathy look' (you know the one).   Yeah... welcome to the club, here's your black rose.  

When I titled this “The Present – Widowhood”  I wondered if people would get confused for a second thinking I meant present as ‘gift’. 

Nope -  not what I meant, I was actually thinking 'present' as in the here and now.

BUT…. WHAT IF??????

*you gotta read this slowly for maximum effect*

W h a t   i f,   i t  a c t u a l l y   I S  a  g i f t ?

Huh?

Could widowhood actually be a gift to my life?  The kind of gift you never asked for, didn’t want, wished you could take back, then slowly realized the Giver had put some thought into it and had a plan in mind when He had it dropped on your front porch with a heavy THUD.  In my case, the “gift” was delivered by three uniformed police officers and an asshole coroner.  (Crossed it out, I’m sure he’s a nice guy… I just don’t like him much.)

Geez, what kind of gift is THAT, God????  I mean, we suffered through a marriage marked with drug and alcohol addiction, mental and emotional abuse, and scarcity then You redeemed ALL of that in marvelous beautiful ways.  We were learning how to love each other the way we thought you wanted us to…. we were so hopeful and thankful for the ways you changed us.  Looking forward to happy future, and a new baby!  I couldn’t have been happier.  And then it all came crashing down on the morning of April 26, 2008 and then a almost a month later on May 23 when I had to have a D&C to remove the baby girl who's heartbeat had stopped.

I was sad.  Surprised. Confused.  I missed him. I missed her. I missed the future I thought we had.  I wondered why did God have to take all this away, just when things were getting good?   Maybe God wasn’t the one who took my husband and baby away, but he did allow it to happen.  Maybe he didn’t intend to send this gift my way.

But what if He decided to intercept the punch in the face that was heading my way and wrapped it up as an unexpected, unwanted gift that will turn out to be the gateway to His plans for me.

 Maybe I’ll get an explanation someday, but guess what?

It doesn’t matter WHY.  I know that through it all God still has something beautiful for me and my girls.  He has promised me that, and I’m going to hold him to it.

So instead of looking at widowhood at a tragedy, so sad, poor me, I’m looking at it as a door that has opened.  Kind of like a graduation.  It’s kind of like I have my Undergraduate Degree with a double major in Wife and Mother.    I made it! I didn’t drop out (even though I wanted to at times.)   I’m thinking about pursuing a graduate degree too…   I’m not sure how that fits into God’s plan for me… so I’m taking it easy right now.

What do you think about that?