Grief experts and folks in the widowed community say over and over again that there is no timeline and that each person’s grief experience is different. That was proven to be very true to me in the past couple of weeks, as I interacted with several widowed people and found that each of us is hitting milestones at vastly different times. Even what each of us considers to be a milestone differs widely.
One person has been widowed for nearly a decade but was able to readily find photos on their phone to show me of their late partner. We talked at length about our marriages and the lives we shared with our deceased partners. This person spoke about their late partner in the present tense, as I do. I suspect people who met me after Tom died wonder who “Tom” is and whether he’s alive or dead, given that I talk about him all the time, sometimes in past tense and sometimes in present tense. To me, he is past but also still present.
I am over two years out and I’m still holding on to many of my late husband’s clothing items, but another widowed person who is less than a year out had a donation opportunity come up and donated all of their person’s clothing. Another widowed friend is nearly a decade out and just now going through their partner’s stuff. Did one of us do it wrong? No.
One widowed person I know hosted a social gathering less than a month after their person died. I used to love hosting parties and dinners, but I’ve only hosted one event since Tom died. It went well, and yet, I can’t quite bring myself to host another one. Maybe I am not a person who hosts events anymore . . . but maybe I am. For me, it’s too soon to tell.
Another interesting difference is about dating. I know more than one widowed person who remarried within a year or two of their partner’s death. Others aren’t able to consider dating for several years, and of course, some never do date. I am dating, but my husband is a tough act to follow, as a couple of people I’ve gone out with have observed.
In my pre-widow days, I thought one or two years was about how long it should take to “move on,” but when I ask myself now what did I mean back then when I thought of “moving on,” I am stymied. I didn’t know what widowed people experienced, so how could I possibly know how long it might take? I knew that historically, widows wore black for one year, so I imagine that’s where the one year marker came from.
The pre-widow me would be astonished that I am still crying myself to sleep some nights (not as many now as a year ago), that I still say good night every night to my dead husband, and that I still take a vial of Tom with me whenever I travel somewhere new to leave some of him there. My pre-widowed self thought all that happened in a flurry of activity soon after the death. My widowed self wasn’t capable of any flurries of activity for many months.
Every widowed person has their own timeline. Every widow I’ve described here is “normal” in their trajectory.
I’m 27 months out, and I’ve accomplished some important-for-me milestones since my husband died:
- I’ve traveled alone (about 9 months after he died)
- I’ve enjoyed traveling without him, sort of, in that I’ve been able to take pleasure in being where I am without thinking constantly about how much Tom would enjoy it (two years after he died)
- I’ve made new friends since he died, people who never knew me when I was “Tom’s wife” (about a year after he died)
And yet, I still feel like grief is very active for me. For example, a few days ago, completely unbidden, a wave of grief hit me while I was walking one of the dogs. By the time I got home, I was bawling and breathless. It was a rare-for-me wave of angry grief. I wanted to argue with Tom, point out to him the dysfunctions in our relationship, the things he was wrong about, but with him not around to give my wrath a target, it turned inward and I was left just breathless and sad.
I remember being that angry after my mom died when I was 12—almost 13, and as many people told me at the time, old enough that I needed to take care of my younger sister and my father. Well, I was completely unequipped to take care of myself, let alone another child and an adult, so I floundered horribly. I remember vacillating between pride in how well I was “taking care of them” (to his credit, my father never suggested I put less onion in the tuna sandwiches I sent for his lunches, although I am scandalized now to think perhaps he didn’t date for a long time because of them) and blind fury that my mother had left us to fend for ourselves.
That anger festered for decades. The anger I feel now comes in a wave, white hot and astonishing, but now I can name it and once I do, it immediately softens. “Hello, Anger, I see you,” I say. “I know you. It’s ok. I know you’re helplessness in disguise. You’re vulnerability, you’re fear. It’s ok. You’re welcome here.” And then my anger stretches out like a dog, yawning and almost smiling, shakes itself vigorously, and I pet its soft lamby ears. We are friends now.
The grief is active, but I’m not afraid of it anymore. That’s another big milestone.