Judgement

Maya was being her usual goofy self on the way home from swim but her silliness suddenly took an ugly turn.  She looked at Owen and said, "We're going to die some day. And then we can see daddy.  Yeah!  I can't wait Owen."  Nausea sets in..

A four year old should not be excited about dying but she also should not have to cope with the loss of her daddy.  But really, who am I to judge her excitement. 

On a whim I googled widow + dating.  Really, it was sort of an idiotic move.

I'm not sure what I was looking for, but I can guarantee I didn't find it.

Instead, I found a post by a woman appalled by her cousin who was dating after his wife's death.  At the time of her post it had been about 3 months.  I agree I was not ready after 3 months.  But who's to say he was not.  The woman even went as far as confessing she was 'venting' about the situation because it bothered her so profusely.  The responses that followed her posts mostly represented those appalled by the cousin's dating.  Many indicated they thought it was 'appropriate' to 'expect' a widow to wait a year 'out of respect.'  Of course, many of these responses also included the information that the responder was not a widow, but it was what they would do if they were widowed. 

Do people really imagine they would be widowed at 33 with a 3 1/2 year old and 16 month old?  I am a worst case scenario kind of person and never had I imagined the events that transpired leading me down the path of widowhood and single parenthood.  In the end, even if I had imagined it, I was so clueless.  There is no way I could know what would be right for any individual's journey through widowhood let alone ..... my own.

I wanted to track this poor man down.  Of course the post was dated 2009 thus the events are long passed.  I wanted to let him know he should make whatever choice he needed to for his life in that moment.  Life is about choices, good and bad.  My only advice is that choices be purposeful not haphazard. 

In the end, we all arrive at the pearly gates with bag full of good and our fair share of both questionable and plain bad choices. 

My insinuation is not that I am perfect.  I pass judgment as well.  But I suppose what I am truly wanting to say is, be sure you are being constructive and not destructive when you are helping anyone through a crisis or arduous journey.  This man, like all widows, was in the process of trying to discover who he is without his wife, without his marriage and ultimately without the life he once lead.  Though it seems like 'slow' is the favored path I would venture a guess it is not.  My journey through widowhood has thus far shown me some things are best faced head on and in the immediate.  This journey has a steep learning curve and with it the decisions are never ending.  

Shortly after Chris' death I had an interesting conversation.  It was one repeated over the first few months.  These conversations surrounded the question of whether Chris had been seeing a doctor and whether we knew about his Cardiovascular Hypertensive Disease.  He had not and did not.  He had refused to go to the doctor in the 7 1/2 years I had known him.  In this 'interesting' conversation I was told that this person 'made' their significant other go.  Ouch!  I wasn't mad, per say, about this response.  But it made my heart ache.  In retrospect, of course I wished I had made Chris go.  However, I couldn't and I didn't and now ultimately that doesn't matter.  He's dead.  So many things are said out of love with best intentions. 

No worries, this wasn't meant as a diatribe.  In my own pursuit of healing, this moment of using google to solve my life problems lead me down this path.  It's a lesson I need to learn just a well as the next person, widow or not.

In the words of Voltaire, judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.