"Moving on"

"I hate being called a Widow. It's the W-word. I won't even say it!"

This was the response of one person I met who had lost the love of her life, in pretty tough circumstances too. But she was not the only person in the same position with the same response. It is not a role you ever asked for, you want it not to have happened. But there you are, the W-word. 

In fact all of the language used around death and bereavement, especially if you have lost the love of your life, is fraught with perils. People are a bit awkward when enquiring where you are on the path of life after this has happened to you. For good reasons. 

Is it rude of me to ask how things are going, with some implication that the pain is getting less sharp? Does he want it to be less sharp? Would he regard it as betrayal if he can say it doesn't hurt as much this week/month/year compared to the last one? Is the pain so overwhelming that he can't even be honest about it? I can see how difficult it is to raise this. I can see why many people run a mile before even raising it. 

I think the good news is that you don't have to be so direct. If you just say 'How are you?' then the implication is there that you can choose to talk about bereavement feelings or not. It's up to the W-word person to choose. I usually would, but then Cro and I did always keep channels very open on this one, to each other and to friends and family. I can totally understand a more private person just pulling up the drawbridge on it.

There are several phrases which pop up in relation to someone who has been widowed or lost their partner. There are many websites for bereavement, for particular illnesses and also for widowed people looking to find new friends or partners. On these it is pretty hard to avoid the phrases, even if they cause some people pain.

'Moving on' is one phrase that comes up, as in:

"You can't stay stuck there. You have to move on."

"I just can't ever imaging moving on and having a normal life."

"I did eventually move on and started to see my friends again and meet new people"

I don't particularly like the phrase, and nor do many W-people, because is implies going from one place to another, and the first place is your dead partner, and many of us don't feel we have left them in that way. 

"Getting on with your life" is another phrase that comes up. This feels less objectionable to me, because it has the word 'life' in it, which I think is the key to a healthy relationship between you now and the you that you were while the love of your life was still alive. But the idea that the love of your life is not there with you in some way is a huge misunderstanding of the situation. They are dead, but they are there in every memory and experience you carry, so they are more present than many people standing right next to you. 

My way of explaining how I feel and how I approach my life now after Cro died is that I am living my life, just as we always did together. The continuity is life itself. We shared it together and even though one of our lives ended (as we knew one day one of them would) the other, mine, continues, with Cro in it in full effect. You could say I am 'moving on with Cro' because it really feels to me that I am. This does not make her a burden or ghost in any new life or even new relationship, just that people don't quite disappear in the way that people crudely expect once they have died. 

And to explain the picture at the start of this entry: This is a physical manifestation of 'moving on with'. I have not quite had the resolution to remove the chinese paper day-calendar that has hung by Cro's side of the bed since 14th June 2023 when she went into hospital for the last time. But today was the day. I have said a goodbye to the calendar because it felt like the right time. But the memory of it, and of Cro, stays. As it clearly must. 

Think of this metaphor:

Two teenage lovers carve their initials in the bark of an oak tree. You can see the initials clearly for the first year or two, and read them for maybe the first five, whether their love itself has blossomed or died (we will not know). But even twenty, thirty, forty years later, you know that if you strip that bark and dig through the new layers of wood, there is one deep layer where the initials will always be clear. Things are obscured by time but not destroyed by it. 

It is so with love. And with the love of your life.