The Widow
I had no idea that on an August day in my sophomore year of college, walking into the student union I would meet the love of my life. I ran into Greg purchasing parking permits for the new year as well as supplies. I had taken a lot of coursework as a high school student, hoping to complete a degree quickly and get my teaching certificate in with less student debt. Greg attended on a partial athletic scholarship for the school baseball team. He was studying agricultural sciences. Standing in line waiting for our turn we just started talking about nothing. It would be the beginning of a romance that would feel like a whirlwind.
After we finished college, I began teaching fourth grade at Golden Eagle Elementary, and Greg began work at ADM. We bought a small house and both of us loved our jobs, but not nearly as much as we loved each other. Greg remained one of the kindest, sweetest people I had ever known. My family loved him and I loved his family. It was a dream to me. Things weren't always perfect and like any couple we did have a few fights here and there, but we always made up and it was the makeup that let us find the strength in who we were.
It wasn't too long before I gave birth to our first child, Katie. Katie was our absolute joy, and she would be four years old before I had my second - and final - child, Angelica. Two girls around the house and a husband who adored them. We went to parks, to plays, to community events. Everything about our life was anything I could ever want or imagine.
And then it happened, my entire life changed. A month before Katie's thirteenth birthday we had all planned to go out to eat and start to interrogate our daughter as to what she might want for her birthday. By 5PM, I hadn't heard from Greg, though, and I wasn't sure when we were going to leave or which restaurant we were planning to attend. Greg had worked late before, though, so I wasn't worried just yet. By 5:30 though, I was worried. Greg hadn't responded to a text message I had sent and didn't answer his phone. I called his office directly to see if someone could get him for me, and the next thing I know they are letting me go and telling me I need to rush to St. John's hospital nearby and that an ambulance had been called.
I arrived at the hospital with my two daughters along, 12 and 8, and demanded to find out what had happened with Greg. I called my in laws who rushed to the hospital as well. Greg was not an old man. What had happened? We had been married 15 years, we weren't even forty yet, nothing terrible should happen and this had to be something that could be solved. My in laws arrived just behind me and I gave them a brief update which was that I had no update and no news to share. I needed them to watch the girls while I could find out more. A doctor came out to the front and let me know everything they had learned, and I was invited to a private room. "Mrs., I want you to know that despite the best of our abilities, your husband was deceased prior to arrival and did not respond to resuscitation attempts. He appears to have had a massive pulmonary event leading to.." And I can barely remember anything else. They moved on: "Your husband is an organ donor. While we do not know how long he was deceased to determine the viability of organs, we would like you to sign these forms.." And I signed.
I walked out to the lobby and waved to my in laws. I walked outside like a zombie. I proceeded to vomit, repeatedly, into an outside trashcan with my mother in law holding my hair. She didn't need to ask what happened. She knew what had happened. And in one day my entire life changed.
It's been five years and a few months since that day. I saw a therapist. I started knitting. Life insurance and my job kept our home OK and made sure the girls were well cared for, thankfully. My in laws provided me anything I needed and our bond was strong, I was always welcome in their home. My parents became sugar-grandparents to my girls and despite my protestations nearly spoiling them.
Still, in all the time, I would find myself occasionally crying in the bathroom, in bed, or on the drive to work. Just memories would hit me strongly and I couldn't get through them. My therapist had encouraged me to join a group therapy program for people struggling with grief. I joined two years after Greg passed away and for the last three years, twice a week, I attended a session with others who had lost a loved one.
At the beginning, the sessions were very difficult. I didn't want to talk aloud about my feelings with other people. I sat in my chair and knitted. After a few months, though, I began to open up. Part of what helped me so much was listening to the stories of others and realizing I was not alone. We were encouraged to build smaller groups inside of our large grief group to talk. There were two women I related to immediately, very young widows who lost their spouses due to accidents. One had a very small child still, aged 4. There was a man in our group that told a story with such compassion that the first time I heard him talk I began ugly crying in a way I hadn't for anyone else beyond my Greg. He is a paramedic, and on one night, 14 years ago, his wife, his son, and his father in law as well as an unborn child were all killed in a drunk driving accident as they were trying to get to the hospital and struck by someone crossing the yellow line drunk.
It had been years for him, but the loss of his entire family made me sick in my own stomach. Losing my Greg was too much grief for me, how would I have felt if I lost my entire family? I don't know if I could have handled it.
I had been it was four years after Greg was passed before Sam, the paramedic who lost his family, and I became friends. We were just friends. We supported each other in meetings and I found that we shared so many things beyond just our grief. We tried cooking, reading, and he had come to talk to my fourth graders as an example of public service and how to be safe in your home.
I didn't realize it, but I was slowly beginning to develop a crush on Sam. Because of it, I stopped attending grief counseling. It felt like a betrayal to my one love, Greg. Greg was my person, would always be my person, and the fact that I had developed feelings for anyone else was wrong. Maybe I was also just bonding with Sam over shared grief, not over any real connection and I needed to get farther away from the loss of my husband. I loved my in laws, I loved my children. I loved my life. I did not want to dishonor my family and I didn't want to put any doubt in my children how much I loved their father; I loved Greg in a way that still touches me. Sam approached me at the end of a meeting after all these years and meetings and asked me directly: "Kelli, would you like to go and get a coffee together? I don't, um, normally date or anything, but we get along so well. I just... I hope it's OK to ask."
I was stunned speechless. Then I caught myself. "Oh, it's OK, Sam. More than Ok, and I'd love to do that.. but I'm not sure what my schedule with my daughters is and it might take me a bit, can I get your phone number and I will text you in the next week or two, I promise?" Sam offered his number and we hugged and left counseling that day.
I of course had sexual needs, but frankly a vibrator allowed me to take care of myself and imagine my Greg back with me in bed, remembering the times we had together in a dorm room, in a small bedroom apartment and in our first house. Those memories would flood back to me and get me over the top, with the thought of embracing him again.
I returned to grief counseling but I wasn't going as frequently. My daughter Katie asked cornered me about the subject, and asked me how I was doing.
"Mom, you need to stop knitting so much. I can't handle this many beanies. Are you OK? I know you aren't attending grief counseling as much, Are you doing OK? Do you need to do more therapy?"
My daughter has always been tuned in to how I feel and I've always been honest with Katie. "Oh honey. I'm OK. I'm struggling a bit because as time goes by, I miss your father but those memories get farther away. I met someone at grief counseling and.. its Sam, you've met him. I.. he asked me out. Oh Katie, I'm so ashamed. I almost said yes. I still love your father. I don't know what came over me. Maybe I'm just lonely sometimes, but I would never do that to you.I would never look to someone other than your father or to dishonor his memory. I just don't know how I go back to grief counseling because I do have some feelings there, and now I know he does too. And I know I should not act on them."
"MOM!" Katie was about to yell at me. "WHY! Why would you NOT act on them? If you were a man and your wife died five years ago, would you be ashamed to date? You are absolutely playing into the patriarchy! This is the way that women used to find themselves locked up in a tower abandoned. No one thinks you didn't love dad. We all know it. Nana knows it and Grandma knows it too. Everyone knows you loved dad. But you aren't hostage to it. No one is expecting you to run off and marry Sam. But why shouldn't you be open to date him?"
I did not expect that response. "Would your sister be OK? I don't know. I feel like I'd need to talk to your grandparents first. I.. this is not a small decision honey. This is a family decision."
"Why is this a family decision? It's your body! You aren't doing anything illegal. You're a school teacher who drives a 8 year old Ford Fusion because it's the car you and dad bought together and you won't trade it in. Live a little mom."
She came over and hugged me and I wish I could say I texted Sam first and said: "Let's get coffee" but instead, I called Greg's mom.
