EVERYTHING has changed.
Mr Duncan is dead. The life we created together is gone, along with the future we planned for our little family.
How I see the world, how I feel, behave, think, and act has changed. I am not the me I’m used to being.
All of a sudden I have massive anxiety, and little things I would never have even noticed before trigger a sudden increase in heartbeat and difficulty breathing. The strangest little things can trigger a massive wave of hurt and bring on a jag of violent crying.
Every thing is a potential trigger.
From the halved laundry pile to the undone chores I’d been asking him to do for weeks. And I do not know what will trigger me, until it is too late and I’m in a flood of tears.
I regularly forget things. A planner by profession, I can barely think further than two days ahead and if I don’t put everything in my phone calendar, it’s as if I never even knew about it. And at this time, I have more meetings than ever to remember - lawyers, banks, insurance companies, grief counsellors…
On top of all the essential form-filling, insurance claims, changes of name on accounts, you know, the mass of bureaucratic paperwork a widowed person is required to deal with, because Mr Duncan was British, I also have British bureaucracy and UK inheritance tax to add to the mix. Normally I’m a bureaucracy goddess, but my skills have deserted me.
I am no longer the person I was.
Everything has changed.
And yet...
NOTHING has changed. His clothes are still hanging in the wardrobe. The bills keep coming. I still have to drag myself out of bed every morning. Our daughter still needs me to do everything for her. And it's harder. She’s much more demanding and clingy now her dad is gone.
But for every single person I come into contact with, everything is the same. Their lives remain untouched, unaffected by Mr Duncan’s death.
I read recently that being widowed is like being in a car accident. One minute you’re doing 100km along the highway like everyone else and the next you’re sitting, helpless, on the side of the road wondering what the %&£& just happened.
The other people slow down as they pass the accident site, to see what’s happened and check if you’re okay, but pretty soon they’re back up to highway speed on track for their destination. Weeks, months, later and you’re still on the side of the road hoping for an ambulance to help with the pain. Or a tow truck to help you move forward.
I regularly forget things. A planner by profession, I can barely think further than two days ahead and if I don’t put everything in my phone calendar, it’s as if I never even knew about it. And at this time, I have more meetings than ever to remember - lawyers, banks, insurance companies, grief counsellors…
On top of all the essential form-filling, insurance claims, changes of name on accounts, you know, the mass of bureaucratic paperwork a widowed person is required to deal with, because Mr Duncan was British, I also have British bureaucracy and UK inheritance tax to add to the mix. Normally I’m a bureaucracy goddess, but my skills have deserted me.
I am no longer the person I was.
Everything has changed.
And yet...
NOTHING has changed. His clothes are still hanging in the wardrobe. The bills keep coming. I still have to drag myself out of bed every morning. Our daughter still needs me to do everything for her. And it's harder. She’s much more demanding and clingy now her dad is gone.
But for every single person I come into contact with, everything is the same. Their lives remain untouched, unaffected by Mr Duncan’s death.
I read recently that being widowed is like being in a car accident. One minute you’re doing 100km along the highway like everyone else and the next you’re sitting, helpless, on the side of the road wondering what the %&£& just happened.
The other people slow down as they pass the accident site, to see what’s happened and check if you’re okay, but pretty soon they’re back up to highway speed on track for their destination. Weeks, months, later and you’re still on the side of the road hoping for an ambulance to help with the pain. Or a tow truck to help you move forward.
Or…, on those really grim days, a hearse to take you away.
It feels surreal.
And very isolating.
Everything has changed and nothing has changed.
It feels surreal.
And very isolating.
Everything has changed and nothing has changed.
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