a not so fiery rant - Don't call me a widow...........however ..........

WIDOW – how I hate that word.   I was commiserating with my therapist about this and recalled this event:

Shortly after Glenn’s funeral, I was talking with an HR person regarding his teachers’ pension.  She had to make a phone call to get information, and she said, “ I have Glenn’s widow here and she wants to know…blah, blah, blah.”

A gut punch if there ever was one.

I hadn’t used that word to describe myself – and to hear it from a stranger was, as devastating as finding him unconscious on the bathroom floor.

‘Why?’, you might ask.  Well, I’ll tell you.

I looked up the definition.  And the dictionaries agree that a ‘widow’ is a woman whose husband has died.  There are other minor meanings, but this will suffice.   One source stated that it comes from a Latin word meaning  ‘bereaved.’  This one I can deal with -  this one is genderless. This one is accurate. I am bereaved.

So think about it – in our scriptures there are 122 references to the word widow or its derivative.

One hundred and twenty-two.  And none (as far as I can see) directly from Jesus. But the jist of our scriptures, is that a widow – as with an orphan – is to be cared for because she has no resources to care for herself – i.e.. NO MAN to care for her.

‘Widow’ has a negative connotation, as does the word ‘orphan.’ Someone whose ONLY caregivers are gone.  Parents or husband -  you get the drift.

All well and good in the 1st century.

We are now in the 21st.  And yet, not much has changed in terms of our language and how society uses words and how we understand them even on an unconscious, gut level.

Well, it’s time we became conscious. It’s time we got out of our gut.

Words have power – ask anyone who has been bullied, made fun of, verbally abused, put down – you get the picture. “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words never hurt me…’ is not true.  Words do hurt.  Big time.

I may be a widow according to the dictionary – but do not use that word to describe me.

‘Why?’, you might ask.  Well, I’ll tell you.

Just because my husband, life partner of 38+ years has died, passed away to another (?) place, is no longer physically alive, however you want to describe this, does not mean I can no longer care for myself.

Having a husband, as wonderful as that was, did not define who I was/am as a person.  Being a wife was only one aspect of my being/identity/sense of self.  Important? Yes. But all of it? No. I, like all other women out there, am more than the sum of my various and sundry mismatched parts.

I was capable of self-care and was self-sustaining before him and I will be after him.
And - knowing Glenn - that is what he would want for me. To be uniquely me – whatever that means. To be who God created me to be.  To be undefinable.  As we all are: Undefinable. ( He would certainly agree with that word!)

So maybe it’s time -  for all of us -  to think before we speak.  It will take effort, it will require that we put the other first(!), it will require that we understand our language and the underlying meaning of words and the impact that it has on the hearer.

My therapist explained it this way (a very wise person!): Our brains have a limited amount of energy with which to work.  And so it is easier for us humans to put things in boxes, in pre-arranged categories ( I’m paraphrasing),  in order to conserve energy. It takes much more energy to think morally and ethically (i.e. outside the box!!) than to just accept what suits our best interests. Well, duh!

http://starpoempickjuly.blogspot.com

So – am I ok with Glenn’s death? No. I still have a long way to go to work my way through all of this.  But in the meantime, do not call me a widow.  Is there a better word?  I haven’t come up with it yet.  So, for now, I am a woman whose husband has died – and is struggling to make her way in the world that does not understand what that means for me. Nor, I suppose, does it care.

So for all my sisters out there whose husbands have died, this one’s for you. You will prevail -  and you will persist. In your own way and in your own time.

And so will I.