"How a widow processes the deep grief of loss is profound and extreme and primitive and very, very private. Trust the griever. Trust that she is doing the hard work. Trust also that she does not owe you any explanations about it"
Tammy Ruiz, The Catholic Widows Guide
Tammy Ruiz, The Catholic Widows Guide
Well... Not for the first time I find myself cast in a role with no name.
I've given a fathers speech and guided guests to seats at weddings but was neither father of the bride nor usher. I've supported husbands at awards but not been wife and have nephews and nieces without being aunt. Such am I... The girl without the title.
I now find myself just over a week into the role of widow.
Except I'm not exactly his widow as no vows were legally signed.
What do you call a girlfriend of a dead boyfriend? See... The role with no name. Once more I am an anomaly.
Its a curious place, the days after a death of a loved one. First there is the language. The gradual slide from present to past tense.
But being a social anomaly I've noticed just as I am getting the hang of that I'm starting to notice that normal social conventions do not apply.
Rather than the tender pussy footing due to widows suddenly there are the questions, each day more graphic as your comforters become desperate for details of your loved ones expiry.
Then - and bear in mind we are just over a week in....the constant stream of distractions offered as if as a non widow you are naturally entitled to shock (short term) but not grieving (long term). To be fair, I have probably not been open enough to the latter. But I strongly suspect I will not find the pain of losing my loved one much salved by ice skating, pop concerts or pinot gregio. But as I said I have not given this much of a trial.
At work it's business as usual. I don't qualify for compassionate leave not being a widow....the only other way is to be first line blood related. Which I feel SHOULD automatically disqualify anyone from being my boyfriend surely. So work carry's on much as before as the need to get paid continues regardless.
In the common place it’s a point to recall that here in the UK we have long given up marking out the bereaved with outwardly markings. As a feminist I thought this a sign of our enlightenment - a liberation.
But when no one can see without being told... no one can act appropriately by osmosis.
There is no way of marking my loss out to the crowd. I look the same. My heart is missing from my chest, my spring has left my step... But to the world im no different from anyone else of my demographic. Small children are still allowed by indulgent and besotted parents to clamber public transport seats and touch me with pudgy hands as a greeting. For which I must act enchanted or face vitriolic scorn.
Being a non widow is a curious role to play. There seems to be no rules or rituals at all.
I feel I should help out. Normally on JaxWorld - you'd get the list but forgive me... I'm not myself... here's the narrative instead (with a little help from the lovely Tammy Reid of course)
A safe general rule in grief is to let the griever set the tone for interactions. If the griever is in a calm, more content moment, share that moment with her. If she is weepy and taken over by a wave of sadness, stay steady with her but don’t try to fix her like a broken toy. It is in insult to start talking about future relationships and fish in the sea it would sound to the bereaved that you are saying the departed was disposable. Also don't sum up what the departed was like. A very wise woman once said "Relationships are houses without windows" basically this means that unless you were IN that relationship you will have no idea what happened inside that house. Please don't tell the bereaved what the departed felt or thought. You are probably the LEAST best placed person to do this. If you want to help your friend try never to put words in the departed's mouth.
I am very lucky in that my friends just want the best for me. And I must accept that some of them have lost a dear friend too.
However the overbearing sense of expectations I perceive coming from others undoes their good intentions. I find myself worrying if the pressure to move on will complicate my road to healing. In a reverse to the monument people expect a widow to be, I can already sense scorn building from friends who feel a non widow should have shaken this loss off by now and be ready to move on.
On Thursday night I could almost hear a friend thinking: "Jax has had bereavement. Jax has had a week: It was time." Thus to mark the one week anniversary of the death of my boyfriend, I was treated to details of that friends forthcoming operation and how it may be touch and go for her. Then, she tried to engage me with her concerns over the treatment of her son on a youth trip. I think she felt if she kept repeating herself I'd forget my boyfriend was dead and plug into the more important matters of the living. After all it is normally my role to give support to others. And in this succeeded she made the night all about her and certainly not my bereavement.
But please don't think badly of her - She wasn't alone... Many of my friends impatiently tell me I will survive that I am strong and I should rejoin life - if not helping them out at least helping myself. If I've heard the words online dating once I have heard them ten times. Not bad for death that occurred on the 5th of December (today is the 14th by the way). But then ...we were not married so....onwards and upwards eh?
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Seriously?!
I do wish people would be there without being there.
I do wish I could have people to lean on and be left completely alone.
Don't condemn me - I'm covered.......I think I said on the last blog that I will be a contrary cow for a while yet.
But I know I couldn't get through this without the love and support of my friends... I just couldn't.
I got a beautiful message from a male friend (whom I don't see nearly enough of ) that just kept me going for days. (Thanks - you know who you are).
But if I'm honest … I don't really want the comfort.
I just wanna turn back time to when my boyfriend was alive and we were together - because we were awesome and we could have done anything because we had possibilities and plans and the belief that we had time.
There is no substitute for what I had then.
Being alive brings the likelihood of anything while death is a flatline with no variation at all.
Facing up to now is just too hard. Which is exacerbated by the fact I'm not really very good at asking for what I need.
Apart from my personal loss I have to watch my friends deal with it too. I hate being a burden to people... and face facts it's almost Christmas and death is a bit of a buzz kill. It's like x100 when there's no etiquette for how to deal with this.
There's no guide book for what to do with a bereaved girlfriend - how the hell does that work??
I know I am no ones widow, I know that!!! I know we're all struggling for a way to get past this, but we're just 9 days in. I know it's hard, on us all.
And yet curiously, this isn't the first time I've been in a role with no name.
It's just the first time it's ever really mattered. And I don't have a single clue what to do.
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