Widows Support, Coaching for Widows

I arrived back home (Cape Cod) from my vacation and the Conference on Widowhood late last night and went straight to bed, more tired than tired.

This morning I got up and took a look around.
The grass needed to be mowed, the garden needed to be weeded, and the house had a layer of fine dust that I couldn’t see but I knew was there. My desk was the same messy mess that I left a week and a half ago and my voice mail was full.

The first thing I did was to fill the bird feeder. My finches don’t need food this time of year, but I feed them anyway because when I do they put on a colorful show.
The second thing I did was to make myself a cup of good, strong, Starbucks coffee. I then flopped in my favorite comfy chair and recalled the flight home.

Flying from Seattle to Boston I sat in the middle of a family, two parents and three small well-behaved children. I rested, as much as one can inside of a 180-thousand-pound missile hurtling through the atmosphere aiming hopefully for one’s city of origin, in my case, Boston. Knowing the landing would include flying over water, I was not comforted. I don’t like flying.

But my mind gradually drifted from the quite lengthy list of possible catastrophes, to the young family that surrounded me.

That family, I thought, that family was supposed to be us. Two parents, many kids. We were supposed to be going on trips and coming home late at night and quietly, together, depositing our sleeping children in their beds. We were supposed to be whispering above their dream-filled heads about our plans for the next day or the next week. We were supposed to be reminiscing about the vacation we had and planning the next. And furthermore, I’ll bet our kids would have been as smart as theirs, or smarter and more musical and more athletic and and and and…. And much, much better behaved.

(God help me, this was really what I was thinking…)

And so there I was. Right in the middle of self-pity and pettiness once again. The good karma from the Conference and my vacation, evaporating before my eyes.

I have been a widow for a good while now, and I know the signs. I know the difference between grief and self-pity. I know, as they say, that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. We must grieve. We must feel the brokenness of our hearts. We must talk about what we have lost. And we must do it over and over again, for as long as it takes to get better.

But the truth is that I am happy these days, and I treasure our very little family. I have done my grieving. I have an amazing daughter and an amazing and pregnant stepdaughter. I can recognize that my life is different than it would have been without once again causing myself to suffer.

So why do I still sometimes choose to suffer? Yikes. I don’t know. Habit maybe? Anyhow, this time I caught myself in the act and stopped my jealous thinking…and instead fed on my memories of the gathering of widows in San Diego. And I was happy for those two parents and their beautiful children. Really happy.  And that is what I will focus on for today.

Mie Elmhirst

Widows Breathe Coaching

Please contact me if you wish to use or publish what you see. Thank you for understanding.

MRE

OK, I am exaggerating just a tad…

But yesterday, the National Conference on Widowhood gave me the opportunity to step WAAAY outside of my comfort zone. Like, Way.

This shy, insecure, risk-averse widow stood in front of a whole bunch of women and revealed herself. I wanted to give these fabulous, courageous and generous widows a few minutes of fun. I think they had fun and I know I did.

I really want to pretend nonchalance, to be cool about it, like “Oh, this ole talk?”
But I can’t. The experience, like so many since Mike died, was life changing.

I can now say, “If I can do THAT, without seizing, throwing up or fainting, (and it was touch-and-go for a while) I can do anything.” That is how big it was.

I used to say that about surviving the first 3 years of widowhood. It is true. If you can make it this far…

We all have these defining moments.

My M.O. was always to run from defining moments, to run like hell. Really, who needs defining? Certainly not this babe…

Maybe Mike’s final gift to me was the willingness to say “yes” or at least “I’ll think about it” rather my usual “not in this life time” when I am offered an opportunity that scares me.

If this is so, thank you Mike. It was not an easy road we walked, that is for sure. But I am grateful for every ridiculously hard moment and every unwanted lesson for I would not be here today if it were not for you. Love you forever, Mie

Mie Elmhirst   Help For Widows   The Widows Coach

For a sample coaching session, please call 508-540-4421.

Why is it that every time I get a pedicure I feel the need share all that is going on in my little life with the young Vietnamese manicurist who is simply minding her own business and working hard to make my feet presentable?

I purchase this summer ritual of beauty at the beginning of the season, hoping that with pink on my toenails, I will finally look like Michelle Pfeiffer. Of course it never works, but I convince myself for the half hour it takes, that this time will be different and I will walk out of the salon a new woman.

I know that my manicurist really has no interest in me or my life – and yet the urge to spill it all, to share all of the little details of my life, remains.

The last time I had a pedicure, I blabbed and blabbed. Eventually she looked up and me and smiled a sweet smile but I swear she was thinking “poor lady, doesn’t she have any boundaries?”

Finally this time, I hold my tongue and instead quietly admire her.
I admire her gorgeous, thick, black hair, her perfect nails and her hands, wishing mine were as graceful.

All of this self-restraint on my part does not stop me from wanting to spill it all. As she appraises my feet and the damage of years without proper foot wear and attention, I want to tell her that I am going to San Diego to the First National Conference on Widowhood tomorrow to give a talk and that they expect me to be funny and all I can think about is will I survive the flight? I am afraid of flying. And hotel rooms.

I want to tell her that I have an 87-year-old father with questionable balance who insists on going down to the basement to do laundry late at night and I know he might fall and that there is nothing I can do about it.

I want to tell her that after 9 years of being a widow, I no longer feel like one and doesn’t she think that that is weird?

I want to tell her that I am again in love.
And I want her to know that my daughter Anneke still grieves and every time she sees me with  my new man because he reminds her of the father she lost. I want my pedicurist to know that sometimes I feel like I am betraying my daughter’s love for her father by loving another man, and that I feel powerless to help her resolve this loss.

I am sure that my beautiful young manicurist does not need to know these things, so I don’t tell her. I have a feeling she has her own worries and I keep mine to myself.

But most of all, I want my manicurist to understand that even with new love, there are times when I feel lonely and powerless still, because new love does not eliminate the realities of loss and grief for our children.

Mie Elmhirst  Life Coach for Widows

Help for Widows

For a sample coaching session call 508-540-4421

Life does sure insist on happening.

This weekend, while I am in San Diego for the First National Conference on Widowhood, my daughter will be putting herself on a plane for musical theater camp. She will take a plane to Newark, and then a bus. We have reviewed her itinerary maybe one hundred times. She is really tired of me. “Do you have your ticket? The confirmation number of the bus service? The notarized permission form? Death certificate? Money? Do you know what to do if there is a glitch? Do you have the hotel’s number in San Diego? Your uncle’s number? Your Aunt’s number?” And on and on.

The poor girl.

It is not her separation anxiety that is at issue. We are both clear about that. It is mine. Since December 2000, it has always been mine. The first time she went to overnight camp I struggled not to go to bed for the whole two weeks. The next year it did not get any better. The third year, it was for a month, and as I walked to my car having said my 30th good bye, I met her counselor. “I think Anneke is very sad,” I wept, “and she might might need some consolation from you”. And then I just sobbed.

This kind, young, cute-as-a-button counselor reached out to me and patted me on the shoulder… “I know its hard Mrs. Elmhirst, but you will be fine.”

Ah, humbled again. My tears dried up and I regained my composure, not wanting to appear less put-together than a young woman 30 years my junior.

I am thrilled about this trip to San Diego. I am following the weekend with my first vacation in over 9 years. By vacation I mean, no child. I will be in a boat sailing among the San Juan Islands with my geologist.

But it is a mixed bag as always. Anneke is growing up and our family that started as three, and then became abruptly two, feels to be getting even smaller as she spreads her wings and puts miles between us.

I know that it is right. But at the same time, it makes me a little sad.

Mie Elmhirst      Help for widows.    Coach for widows.

For a sample coaching session call 508-540-4421. Coaching happen over the phone so distance is not a factor. Or email Mie at mie@widowsbreathe.com.

What about the widow who was NOT married to  her soul mate? What about the widow whose marriage was a challenge? Or, what about the widow who, after her husband died, had to grieve not only him, but who also had to grieve what didn’t happen in her marriage? Who faces the reality of missed opportunities?

There are those women among us who married their soul mate, and there are those women among us who married a good mate, a mate who was right for them but about whom we might not use the word soul mate. Grief for these women is no less challenging.

Recovery is complicated for the widow who experienced major imperfections in herself, her man, and/or in their relationship and for the widow who experienced deep pain during her marriage, not just after he died.

My marriage was full of imperfections. Truthfully, most of them were mine. Or, at least those are the ones I am talking about.

There were opportunities for intimacy that I did not take. Mike was diagnosed with breast cancer (yes breast cancer) a month before we got married and for the whole of our marriage we never spoke about the possibility that I would out live him.

I wanted to communicate. I wanted to talk about my fears, my confusion, the affect cancer had on me, my concerns for our daughter and my concerns about what cancer was doing to our family. I wanted to share but I didn’t take the opportunity. I was unable to screw up the courage needed to break the silence. Both out of loyalty to Mike who did not want to talk and because I was afraid of opening a Pandora’s box fulled with unknown terrors.

For the 10 years of our marriage I struggled with the dichotomy of living with Mike as if he would live forever and knowing deep in my heart, if I had had the courage to look there, that he was dying.

I told myself that I was doing it for him, protecting him. But that is only half of the truth. I was really protecting myself from the intimacy that could come from ‘digging in’, from facing that of which I was most afraid.

My greatest regret is that I failed both myself and my husband; that I did not have the courage to speak up.

I have compassion for the woman I was. I understand what I was up against, my personality, Mike’s personality and long family histories of silence. I understand and I hold in high regard the people we were, all those years ago. It is hard to speak up when your growing up was about keeping silent.

But I tell my partner now that the good wife is gone. She quit.

Instead…
I.
Am.
Talkin’.

When I am upset, he will know. When I am afraid, he will know. When I am happy, he will know. I will do it warmly and compassionately, but I will talk. No more Mrs. Nice Guy! No more secrets just too scary to talk about. I want intimacy. And in order to get what I want, I will have to talk.

“Be afraid” I tell him, “Be very Afraid.” He laughs, ready for whatever it is I have to offer.

Dear Widows – What will you have to offer???

Mie Elmhirst

Widows Breathe Coaching – Coaching for Widows.

For a sample coaching session please call 508-540-4421 or email me at mie@widowsbreathe.com.