Ten years ago today my husband, Gordie, died suddenly. Sometimes I feel like he has been gone for 50 years. Sometimes I feel like he has only been gone 50 days. My sons and I have moved forward with our lives but it has been a rough road. Here are ten things I’ve learned in the ten years I have been a Widow.

1) It never gets easier or better. You just learn to live with it. In the first years after Gordie died, I thought it would get easier. People told me it would get easier. Perhaps for some people it really did get easier. But for me, ten years later, it has not gotten easier. I have just learned how to live with it. I miss Gordie now as much as I missed him the day after he died. I hate being a Widow now just as much as I hated it the day after he died. I hate that I have so much to tell Gordie but my only method of communication is talking to the sky or to his grave. I still hate that I don’t really know how he died. I still hate that I did what I was supposed to, I went to work and came home to a holy hell nobody would ever imagine. But I have learned to live with all of that.

2)   Ten years later I have learned that raising kids alone is even worse than I feared it would be right after Gordie died. My sons were ages six and two when Gordie died. For the first few years after his death, raising them alone was more physically exhausting than emotionally exhausting. Now that they are ages 16 and 12, it’s more emotionally exhausting. Raising a teenage boy on my own has been, in all honesty, a living hell at times. There are days that I curse Gordie for leaving me on my own to handle this. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish that Gordie was here to co-parent with me. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish someone else could be the bad cop or that I could say “I’m done, you take this one”. My younger son is much easier. Thank God. But it would sure be nice to have Gordie here helping with the driving to all his practices and the 5am wake up for early games. It would also be nice to have someone to weigh in on important decisions. It’s a lot of pressure and responsibility when you have to make every decision involving your kids. There are days I absolutely hate it. Ten years later I now realize that the only committed relationship I can be in is with my sons…at least until they are on their own. They come before everything and everyone else, including me.

3) It never stops being awful for kids growing up without a Dad. Kids who do not have a Dad are disadvantaged. Every month there are occasions and events where they are reminded that they don’t have a Dad and every single time it’s like a punch in the gut for them. Every week, they are unable to do something, even as simple as practicing soccer or inviting a friend over because their only parent is with their sibling or at work or shopping for food. Every year they celebrate their birthday without their Dad. Multiple times a month they are the only kid with just a Mom present instead of two parents. Boys without a Dad don’t have anyone to teach them how to throw a baseball, tie a tie, or change a tire. Boys without a Dad are doomed to the sex talk with their Mom…something neither party wants to do. Boys without a Dad pretend it is all good. They don’t want to call attention to the fact that they are different. So, they say nothing. But if you look at them carefully, in the exact right minute, you see it in their faces. I have seen it thousands of times in the past ten years and it still crushes my soul.

4) It is sadly true that people will promise the moon when you lose someone but many will fail to deliver and if you are not careful, they will disappoint you. Other Widows warned me of this when Gordie died and it helped to be prepared. I truly believe that people have the best intentions when someone dies and they make all sorts of promises. But reality hits. When people ask me how they can help a friend who has just experienced a significant loss, one of the things I tell them is not to make grand promises. I tell them to think carefully about what they might be able to do a year from now or two years from now. It hurts to be disappointed. It hurts to wonder if you did something to make people forget what they said or promised. It hurts when they turn away from your kids. Ten years later my boys and I are very blessed and grateful for the people who are in our lives and who provide enormous amounts of support but yes, we were disappointed over the years by others.

5) There is an after life. I am certain of it. Gordie still visits us. I can feel when he’s here in the house.  I can still feel when he’s sitting in the passenger seat of my car, something he often did right after he died. Ten years later I am still convinced that he chooses to visit the earth in the form of a hawk. I cannot count the number of times a hawk has been circling over us at key moments in our lives. He also seems to show up in the form of the hawk when I am struggling or when I am thinking about him.

6) Ten years later, I am bitterly disappointed in my career after becoming a widow but will never regret the choices I made. Before Gordie died I had big aspirations for my career. I was ok with personal and family sacrifices because Gordie was there for the boys when work called me away. That all changed when Gordie died. All of my career choices in the past ten years have been in the boys’ interest, not mine. Occasionally I feel frustration, sadness and anger for what has become of my career but I would never make a different choice.

7) Ten years later, there are still a few days a year when I hit rock bottom and am nearly ready to pack it in. In the first year following Gordie’s death, I contemplated suicide. I hit a very dark place and had to dig my way out of it. I would be a liar if I said that I don’t still occasionally reach that dark place. There are days where I am so exhausted physically and mentally and lose hope that things will get better. It does not happen often thank goodness and when it does, all I have to do is look at Wyatt’s face. I would never, ever cause him to go through the loss of another parent, the only parent he remembers. Wyatt was only two years old when Gordie died. His biggest wish is that he could remember what it was like to have a Dad. That is a huge piece of sadness that he will always carry. I will never intentionally add to that sadness. On those rock bottom days, all I need is one look at his sweet face, with the big blue eyes and freckles, and I am ricocheted up and out of rock bottom.

8) Moving forward is a choice that has to be made every single day. I have written about this before. There was a point about a year after Gordie died that I made a conscious choice to move forward. At the time, I thought it would be the only time I would need to make that choice. Now, ten years later, I know that I have to make that choice every damn day and will probably do so for the rest of my life.

9) I’ll never completely stop fantasizing about the soap opera come back. I loved soap operas and watched them for years. Like many, I was thrilled when they brought back a loved character from the dead. There are times when I fantasize about Gordie coming back from the dead. In some of my fantasies, he’s walking up the driveway at night when I take the trash out to the garbage cans. In other fantasies, he’s waiting on my front porch when I get back from walking my dog. In my fantasies, I’m never shocked to see him. My “walking the dog, back from the dead” fantasy goes something like this:

Aspen and I are walking up the street, turn into our driveway and I see someone sitting on the porch. As we come closer, I see it’s him. His hair is short, almost like a buzz cut. He stands up and walks toward Aspen and me.

He looks down at Aspen, puts his hand out and asks “who do we have here”?

“Her name is Aspen. We named her after one of your favorite places”, I say.

He smiles, kneels down, pets Aspen and then looks up at me.

“Hi Stace,” he says.

“I knew you weren’t really dead”, I say with a wry smile. And he laughs.

That’s the extent of my fantasy. I have not yet worked out where the hell he’s been for ten years.

10) Ten years later I know that it is my support system that has carried me through ten years. I had incredible people in my life when Gordie died and they are still here for me today. I have made new friends since Gordie died and although they never knew Gordie, they also have helped me get through these ten years. I have friends I can call at any time day or night. I have friends who show up even when I don’t ask. I have friends who understand when I need company but don’t want to talk about the bad stuff. It’s been very difficult since losing my Mom in 2019 because she was my biggest supporter, she was the one who reassured me that I could do this Widow with Kids life, she was always, always there for me. I miss her everyday. But I still have my Dad who is always there to help and who has made the financial aspect of being a solo parent easier.

Ten years. Wow. A decade without Gordie. A decade raising two boys on my own. This is not the life that I wanted. This is definitely not the life that I wanted for my sons. But it’s the life that God gave us. I’ve made a ton of mistakes in the past ten years but I believe that I’ve done a more than OK job given the circumstances. Ten years into this I am a lot smarter than when I first joined the Widow club. Ten years later I am a lot stronger. Ten years later I am a lot more determined to make it another ten years.

Thank you to everyone who has been there for me and the boys for the past ten years. You know who you are and I thank God for you everyday.  With love, SB