Summer is an interesting time for the moms I know. The working ones juggle work, nanny and camp schedules. The "non-working" ones drive around alot, manage social schedules, keep the meals and fun happening all day long. Schedules change. Camps begin, end, begin again. Vacations happen. Friends leave town. Come back. Leave again.
For me, the new widow, the routine of my past life, the one where I had a husband and an intact family, has been totally shattered. Now, overlay the unscheduled summer, and I am a woman uncomfortable in the present moment. All my routines lost. Everything familiar in flux.
We go on vacation, but when we return we have to confront all over again the truth of what has happened to us. Oh, right, he's still not here. He did die. I am a single mother. Natalie and Alec are fatherless children. I can't figure out why my computer keeps going black. Who wants to live in the present moment when this is what you must confront.
Six months after Ken's death feels harder to me than his entire illness...even than his death and the immediate aftermath. I was so filled with purpose then. I knew what had to be done. And Ken was still the center of my life.
Right here in the present...I am a single mother. No. I don't want to be this.
I am a widow. No. I don't want to be this.
Natalie and Alec have lost the best father a child could have. No.
I have lost my husband that was really my hero in so many ways. No.
The illusion of security is shattered for us. No.
Sometimes when Natalie wants to be doing something different than whatever activity we're doing at the moment, I borrow a line from Ram Dass. I say, "Natalie, BE HERE NOW." Nice advice, but I don't want to follow it. I want to be somewhere else. But here I am.
