This is a bit of a different post than I have done before but as someone who works with people to release emotional blocks using Essential Oils, I wanted to share a bit of my journey with you all.
Several years ago, 30 to be exact, just 2 weeks before my 30th birthday, my then husband committed suicide after a long battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. I was a young mother with 3 kids, the youngest of which was our daughter who was only 15 months old. To say my world was rocked is an understatement. I felt many things, including grief, guilt, fear, relief and anguish. Shortly after his death I enrolled in freshman comp class at the local college. I had always journaled and written but never really shared my writing. Here is one of my papers called
“Life after Death”
I was recently widowed and it has occurred to me that life after death isn’t much different than life before death. This is not a common opinion among those who have not experienced this phenomenon.
I still get up, go to work, have kids to raise, meals to prepare, bills to pay, laundry to do, in short life to live. However, there are many circumstances and attitudes which are different. I am now a single person (whatever that means), I am an independent person. I no longer have someone to ask about this or that, no one to please or compromise with. Another word for this is…… alone. I am also an oddity that most of my friends aren’t sure what to do with in the social sense.
I have found my daily life to be much the same as before my husband’s death. I still get up, eat, clean house, pay bills, work, care for children, smile, laugh, cry (often) and praise God for it all. The circumstances and events may be slightly different though. I get up alone, eat with my children instead of my husband and children, clean my house, pay my bills, not our house, not our bills. I care for my children and have to hire a sitter rather than leave them with Daddy. I smile, laugh and cry to myself or at and with my children. We are still an almost ordinary family……minus one.
As for being a single person, my last chance at that was before the birth of my oldest son. Anyone considering getting involved with me, I am a quadruple, not a single…….Anyone considering getting involved with me is not looking at a relationship they are looking at four relationships. I am not a singular woman. I am a woman, mother, teacher, provider, student, employee, homemaker, widow and anything else necessary. Single hardly seems like the appropriate word. Alone is an appropriate word. After the death of a spouse, you are alone even in a crowd, for a very long time. I suspect until your heart is committed to another. You are surrounded by family and friends and still alone.
An independent person I am. I was before. We all take care of the necessities of life. If there is no one there to help or take care of it for you, then you take care of the task. It is called survival. I think the exception to this is those who are widowed after 40-50-60 years of marriage and seriously don’t know how to carry their spouses load. They are so used to having the other part of the puzzle in place they are not sure where their place is when their spouse is gone. This part is very unique. Unlike divorced people, a widow or widower cannot call their spouse, their x-spouse and yell, scream, laugh, share with or ask for help. This makes the options limited in some ways. You have to take care of it ALL or let your life fall apart or responsibilities to go unattended. We see this many times in the elderly when they lose a spouse. For instance, woman who don’t know how to pay the bills or buy a car, men who don’t know how to cook or do laundry.
Social life as a widow is where I see the biggest difference. I have always had a lot of friends, married, single, male and female. Thank GOD for my unmarried female friends. My married friends have quit asking me out, coming over, or even calling. This strikes me as strange because we still have the same things in common…with one exception, I no longer have a husband to praise or complain about. My unmarried male friends treat me differently as well. Men I have known for years have gone from respecting me as a married woman to treating me like open game. This is an adjustment I struggle with as I still feel like a married woman. Many have assumed far more than they had a right to regarding my present state of singleness. Some treat me rather cautiously. I think they expect a sad, traumatized, vulnerable, needy woman who is desperate to find another man to fill the void. A woman after their freedom. For these reasons, dating is no easy task! Many, many people say, “as pretty as you are and as bright as you are, you’ll have tons of men after you!” I roll with laughter at this comment for all the reason stated above. In the 6 months since my singleness started I have had a married man, a drug addict, one who wanted only friends with benefits and one old enough to be my father ask me out. Dating isn’t easy. The ones worth seeing more than once are rare.
So as you can see, life after death is very much the same as before. I still put my pants on one leg at a time. My daily routine varies very little from how it was before my husband died. The biggest change is in people, attitudes toward me, dating and being alone in decisions, crisis, joy, accomplishments, victories and…. at night.
I have faith though that there is Life After Death.
SO fast forward….
…………30 years (yes that makes me 60). Addiction once again reared its ugly head and stole someone I love and a relationship I cherished. I am now going through a divorce from my husband whom I loved dearly and was with for 27 years. Yes we met shortly after I wrote the above paper. 27 years later, I once again find myself single and as I read the above again, I find that there really isn’t much difference between being widowed or divorced like I thought at the time, especially after a long marriage. You mourn. Oh how I have mourned. I have felt sadness, grief, guilt, relief, anguish and anger just as before. But just as before I still get up. I still have obligations. I have to learn to fill the gap left by my spouse. I have a life to live.
I am alone.
These days I don’t even have children to fill the hours, it is only me.
Here is the difference this time.
I made a decision to be single. Even though, the whole thing blindsided me just as the suicide did before, this time I made a DECISION to walk away from ADDICTION and the emotional or physical abuse that accompanies it many times and definitely did in my case. I could no long live with the craziness and the abuse that had slowly grown. So slowly that I hardly noticed it until it was right in my face where I could no long ignore it. So I DECIDED to take MY life back.
I make a decision every day to live in joy and peace, not in sadness. God has brought me to this very moment for a reason. I have found this to be a time of growth, re-invention, re-designing, re-discovering myself…. MY LIFE…….. MEEEEE!
As I approach the time in life we are told is going to be a time to rest and to enjoy the fruits of our labors, I find myself not wanting to rest. I want to explore, to experience. God is showing me my gifts and now I want to share them with the world. I do not feel alone (most of the time). I do not feel separate (ever).
For the first time in my life I feel truly like ME. I have peace.
I feel free to SOAR.
Free to have relationships that are good and serve me and bring me joy.
I feel free to ask for what I want and not settle for anything less.
Free to build a business I believe in that has helped me, along with much prayer, to get past so many emotions and emotional blocks.
I feel I have everything I need every single day, by the grace of God.
I feel free to be the mom and Nannie I want to be.
I no longer feel the need or the pressure to be something or someone to please another.
No judgement if I don’t perform just right , say just the right things, in just the right way as the other sees fit. (You know there is so much freedom with age too!)
There truly is Life after Death…… and Divorce!
Are you struggling after a death or divorce? Is addiction (drug, alcohol, gambling, sex) wreaking havoc in your relationship? Let’s talk!