New to the neighborhood

Widowhood keeps smacking me in the face – I’m new to the hood.  It keeps surprising me. The grief part was expected, the surprises are taking some getting used to. I keep having to remind myself that he is really gone;  not gone on a business trip, not gone to work, just plain gone. This is where I live now – this is my new hood.

I am one of twenty-four first cousins. I fall in the middle of the pack age wise but I’m the first to move into the hood. I am the first widow. This is not a race anyone hopes to win but it is a competition we all entered when we said “I do” to that one person we found and wanted to spend our lives with. We all began walking toward the finish line when we walked up that aisle. 

Somebody has to go first – that’s a given, not a choice.  I always hoped it would be me, I’d had enough of grief. I couldn’t imagine having to go through the process again, especially without the person who had held me up during those other losses. But the truth is grief is a lonely road even when someone is holding you up. Grief is personal. 

I might be the first of my generation in the family to move into the neighborhood but other people live here too, I’m certainly not alone. I have neighbors who are starting to introduce themselves. We have a bond, these strangers and I, a shared experience, an unspoken connection once we realize that we are living in the same neighborhood. 

I didn’t want to move into this new hood – none of my neighbors did either. We’ve been tossed into the community by circumstances beyond our control. The move happened to us. We didn’t even have to leave home to make the transition.  The neighborhood doesn’t have physical boundaries, you can’t find it on a map, it exists on an emotional plain. The neighbors meet in spirit, they are good people, supportive people and I’m thankful for that support. 

Some of my neighbors have lived in the hood for years, they seem settled, they seem okay.  These are the friendliest of my new neighbors – the first to pat my hand and give me a knowing smile.  In that subtle gesture I get the sense that their grief is still alive and well.  That it is living beneath an exterior of fineness, of okay-ness that is only skin deep. The gesture seems to convey the message that I will be okay one day too – on the outside.  It seems to say I will get used to the grief, comfortable with it even, but it won’t go away. And that that’s okay too, life goes on. 

This new neighborhood is a little spooky right now, a little dark and lonely but I will learn to navigate it. Others have. I will find a new sense of self on these strange new streets, I will find my way. For now though I just want to hunker down and peek out the windows, pace myself. I won a race that I didn’t want to win and it isn’t a victory at all.