Widows Support, Coaching for Widows

Today’s writing is for those of you who are dating. Or, at least, trying to date. Or wanting to date…or thinking about dating…Or for those of you who gave up dating because it was to frustrating.

There is one Huge Mistake most widows make. And it is Huge. Widows (and I include myself here) make this mistake over and over again and often don’t know that they are making it. It took me a good few false starts to figure it out. Now I don’t profess to be THE expert on dating, but I have learned a thing or two from observing others and from doing my own very personal, sometimes funny and sometimes tragic, research.

I have come to  understand the basics and I can make you a promise.

If you can avoid this Huge Mistake, your dating career will be quite happy and lots of fun.

Here it is, the Huge Mistake.

Women don’t pay attention.

A man will show you who he is very quickly. He will show you by talking about his children, his late or ex-wife, he will show you who he is by how he treats the people you encounter on your date. He will show you who he is by how he treats money. (Does he complain?) He will show you who he is by how he handles it when you let him know that you are not comfortable going to his house or having him come to yours. (Is he respectful of your boundaries?)  He will show you who he is by his outlook on the world in general. Does he see it as a friendly place or is he at war? (With his boss, other drivers, family…) Does he like what he does or is he in a job that he hates but does nothing to remedy?

Men show us every minute who they are.

Rather than seeing him as a project, someone to be helped, we we must pay attention to who he is today. Because, that is who he is.

If he is distracted, on a date, pay attention. He is someone who is not present. You should not have to work to make him present.

If he is late, pay attention. He may not really care that much one way or another how the date goes.

If he expects you to pay half, pay attention. This man may not be generous in other ways.

Women so much want a date to work out that they often pretend that these things don’t really matter, or that the traffic was bad or he forgot his credit card, or he had a bad day at the office.

If there is something that gives you a funny feeling in your tummy, Pay Attention. Your intuition is telling you something.  And intuition is never wrong. We may interpret it wrongly, but the feeling is not wrong.

When we pay attention, we ask ourselves, “are these qualities that I see in this man the qualities that I want in my life?”

If he is kind to the waitress, gives you his attention, is curious about you and well as forthcoming about himself, again, pay attention. It doesn’t guarantee the outcome you want, but the chances are better for a fun date.

I have made my share of ‘put the blinders on’ mistakes. Three years ago I met a really nice man and we began dating. The only thing that sort of bugged me was that we split the cost of every date, although it was clear that he was a good deal wealthier than I.

Now I am a boomer, born in 1953, and I experienced the 60’s and 70’s. And I learned there that women and men should have equal rights. So, I thought to myself, sure I can pay. Why not? I am equal, right? (I can hear all of you smarter women groaning…)

Anyhow, time passed, and my very feminine need to be protected and cared for raised its head…and I realized that I wasn’t feeling it from Mr. College Professor. (He, by the way, was not unhappy with the arrangement!) But I was unhappy. And I realized that each date, each time that he did not step up to the plate, I was becoming more unhappy. It wasn’t about the money. It was about my need to feel protected and cared for.

How we treat money is reflective of who we are. He was not a generous with money, nor was he generous of spirit.

And, if I had paid attention to my gut on date #1, when we split the cost of dinner and he was obviously thrilled and I was not, I would have said something like “thank you for the lovely date but I think we are not a good match”. And we would not have had to go through a break up after 3-4 months, I would not have caused him pain or myself unnecessary pain.

That mistake took some of the fun out of dating.

You may ask, why didn’t I just talk to him about the money thing? Well, if it had just been money, I would have. But it was bigger than money. How we are with our money is how we are in our lives. (The subject for a future blog!)

Now, I pay close attention now to how men talk about money and how they treat their money. I pay attention when my gut says “no” and I pay attention when my gut says “yes”.

Why don’t we women pay attention to who men are? One big reason is that women don’t like dating. We women want to find Mr. Right and we don’t want to have to date much to get him. So we find Mr. OK and try to make him into Mr. Right.

Nuff said…for now.

Blessings and Happy Dating, Mie   The widows Coach

The next Widows Dating Again tele-class starts after the New Year. I am waiting to hear from you. It will be on Wednesdays.

Click on “Widows and Dating” to the right for the tele-class description.

Either 6 AM, Noon, or 6 PM EST

The timing is up to you.

The first few women who email me with a preference will set the time.

There will be a limited number of slots.

Within a week I will send out an email with the time.

Me and AAA #1

Two weeks ago I left the door of my car ajar overnight and killed the battery. I have done this before so I am familiar with the routine. I almost know the AAA number by heart.

“The car is in my driveway, a green, 1995 Volvo 850, license number CIPH90, AAA membership number XYZ.”

But this time, in talking with the dispatcher, for some reason I told him that I had a BMW.

I don’t know why I did this. It just rolled off my tongue. “It’s a BMW.”

The call went quite smoothly but when the nice young man asked me what model BMW it was, I was stumped. Because, of course, I don’t have a BMW.

After stuttering a bit I confessed that it was in fact a 14 year-old Volvo.

“Excuse me Ma’m? You don’t have a BMW?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t”.

“But Ma’m, you just told me that you had a BMW.”

“I know what I told you, but I don’t have one.” Really, I was as puzzled about this as he was.

He began to laugh. “Well Ma’m, maybe you want one?”

“Yes, I suppose I do, yes, that would be nice.” I said. “Well, maybe when I’m old.”

“Yes ma’m,” he said “when you are old you will get your BMW.”

Me and AAA #2

Last weekend I had a flat tire. Well I didn’t exactly have it, like one would have a baby, but I did cause it when I sideswiped a curb and opened a piece of the tire that would have made the Michelin Man squeal with delight. It was not repairable. The sound of air escaping was audible even with the windows closed and it was accompanied by the sinking of my heart.

The worst part was – well there were actually two bad parts – the first was that my 87 year-old father was with me, a man who still drives and has not caused damage to his car or anyone else’s in over 60 years. I have to say that he was kind about my little mistake, saying very little other than “the tire is fine!”  even though it was as flat as a pancake. A case of seeing what you want to see. As luck would have it, we had just come from Trader Joes so we had a veritable picnic while we waited for AAA.

The other worst part was that when I was on the phone with the AAA operator, I explained to her that I had my quite frail, elderly father with me and he was a bit feeble and would they take that into consideration when putting me in the queue of motorists waiting for help?

Actually, I whispered it into the phone because if my father, who thankfully is a bit deaf, had heard, he would have hit the roof. One of the things he is not is feeble and the other thing he is not is frail. Not knowing this, the dispatch lady was gracious, and said yes, not to worry, she would have someone out very soon to help me and my elderly father.

I looked over at my father, munching happily on Trader Joe’s corn chips. He looked chipper and young and it was clear that he would not pass for 87, or 85, or even 75. Concerned that I would be caught in my exaggeration, I confessed to him what I had done and told him that it would help with my credibility if, when AAA arrived, he would maybe hang his head down to one side, and perhaps would he drool just a bit?

He looked at me with alarm, eyes open wide, and then looked at his lap and sadly shook his head. When it occurred to me that the drool was not going to happen I asked him if he would at least stay in the car while they changed the tire? Again, with a look akin to disgust, he shook his head. But I was pretty sure that he agreed.

Then we waited. And waited and waited. And almost polished off the whole bag of chips. Finally the truck showed up and I got out of the car to supervise, and to explain that yes – the spare was also flat, and I was so glad that he had an air compressor on board. Well, he said, no, he had no compressor but there was a gas station nearby, maybe ½ mile away, not so far for me to walk…

“But my father…” I stammered, determined that his presence would help me plead my helpless case…”he’s old.”

Of course, at that moment my father decided he had had enough and got out of the car with more agility than a gymnast.  I groaned as he engaged the young man in lively conversation.

AAA is a compassionate organization and my tire-changing savior willingly called another truck outfitted with a compressor even though it was clear that my father was no nursing home candidate. The compressor arrived within 5 minutes and in ten minutes we were again on our way, me a bit humbler and my father eager for the cup of coffee I had promised.

Monday morning, I walked into Firestone.

“You or Anneke?” Dave-the-Firestone-guy asked.  “Let me guess, Anneke????” (My 16 year old.)

“Well”, I explained, “it was me, but actually, I think it was her because 2 weeks ago, she brushed up against the curb with a loud bang so when I did it Saturday, well it was like she loosened the pickle jar cover and I just snapped it open!”

He gave me the same look my father gave me, a look that said “you gotta be kidding me”, and he told me that when he saw Anneke the next time he would be sure to tell her that she had nothing to do with it. Just in case I did not come clean myself.

Fine. So I went home and confessed to Anneke that I wanted to blame her but that Dave-the-Firestone-guy wouldn’t let me.

She smiled that same smile she smiles all of the time when she learns again, that even without a father, she is looked after. This time by Dave-the-Firestone-guy.

All in Fun, Mie Elmhirst

Help for Widows. The Widows Coach

I expected to have this ‘grieving thing’ wrapped up within a year. The way I saw it, I was 47 and probably had less years ahead of me than behind. I was willing to grieve (isn’t that funny? like I had a choice…) but I was counting on a sort of a statute of limitations, a timeline of grief that had a very distinct end point, after which I would feel free and wonderful and excited about my future.

I knew women who were still grieving two, three, and four years after their husband died. To be honest, I saw them as rather self-indulgent, maybe a little weak, and most likely, self-involved.

A friend warned me. “Be careful Mie.  We become what we judge.”

Within a short period of time, I came to see instead, that it was I who was ignorant, uninformed and more than a little arrogant.

Newly initiated into the world of grieving a partner, I had no idea, what was to come. But four years later, I was still working at sorting out my marriage, widowhood, and still trying to figure out who I was. And, I missed Mike. Not every moment, not every day, but yes, I still missed him.

When Mike first died I experienced a surprising mix of relief and shock.

The shock was, of course, that he was actually gone. After 10 years with cancer, maybe I should have expected this, but after so many years, one just assumes that it will go on forever.

But even more important is the fact that it is virtually impossible to prepare for what it feels like to have a loved one gone. It is impossible to prepare for how it feels to face an empty bed, phone calls that for a moment you think are his, the car in the driveway that has you believing he will momentarily walk in the door.

It is impossible to prepare for a feeling or an experience that one has never had. It simply can’t be done.

The relief I experienced (relief that because of shame and my own misunderstanding I shared with no one) was that I finally stopped being afraid that he would die. I did not have to be afraid of what it would feel like. I did not have to be afraid of waking up that first morning without him. It had already happened, I was feeling it, and the first morning had come and gone.

No longer did I count his breaths at one or two in the morning, paying attention to the rhythm, holding my own breath during a particularly long pause, and then exhaling in relief when it came, wondering if his next would be his last. For a short while after Mike died, my sleep was undisturbed.

But little by little, as shock and relief abated, grief methodically and deftly wrapped its tentacles around my neck and seven months later had me gasping for air. I had never known such fear, pain, loneliness and desperation. For a while I doubted my fitness as a mother. As old fears calmed, they were replaced by new equally virulent fears. Each day, just when I thought I could not feel any worse, I discovered new holes in my heart, new aches in my chest, and my head swirled.

Would I make it? Would Anneke survive? Would she thrive?

Would I be a good single parent?

Could I pay for her college?

Would I be able to make up for the loss of her father? Was I supposed to?

Would I ever be happy again? Would I ever again ‘be with’ a man? (My words for ‘getting naked’…)

So much for being done in a year.

It took 4-5 years for me to come to terms with the whole experience, and to become fully calmed. I was not in agony for all of that time. Far from it. Much of that time I was in school, traveling, and always caring for my daughter.

But I have come to see that there is a sort of a timeline when a woman has lost her husband. It is just not the timelime I had planned on. It is longer and bumpier.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t add that life now is also far better than I expected. It truly is. I wish, way back then, that I had known that this was coming. But then again, if I had known, knowing me, I wouldn’t have done the work.

I am grateful for my coach.

Warmly, Mie Elmhirst   Help for widows.

The widows coach.

Call 508-540-4421 for a sample coaching session. I will be happy to do this with you.

My clients (those who are widows) remind me often of what it was like, eight years ago, seven years ago, six years ago…

I get reminded about pain, yes, but more than that I am reminded as I watch them slowly recover, about getting better.

I am reminded what the passage of time plus a good deal of internal work can accomplish. And then I get to pass on the promise of growth.

Recovery from the trauma of widowhood is sometimes like having a monstrous headache for weeks and weeks (that did happened to me once), and eventually it calms down but so slowly that you don’t really notice that it is gone until one day you wake up and say “hey, no headache. When exactly was it that it stopped hurting?”

The pain of widowhood is of course a zillion times worse and cannot be compared to a headache, but the process is the same. Getting better happens when we are not looking.

Eventually we wake up one morning, put on our bathrobe and slippers, scuff on down to the coffee maker and then ‘come to’, realizing with a start, “Hey – I feel kinda good today!”

I remember the first time I felt ‘kinda good’. I was looking out of the kitchen window into the back yard holding my coffee, and I froze. The feeling of well-being was so startling and unfamiliar and delicious that I was afraid if I moved, or even breathed, that it would disappear. So I just stood there and felt good, sipping away. I must have stood there for 15 minutes.

Of course within a few hours it disappeared, and I was disappointed, but I took it as a sign. A hopeful sign. A sign that I would eventually feel better for longer and longer stretches of time.

You will too. You will have brief occasional moments of feeling good, and then more frequent moments and longer moments, and then a whole day, and then a week…

Recovery is not linear. We have set backs. But set backs do not mean that we are going backwards or getting worse. Setbacks are just part of the process.

A huge step forward is when we finally  transition from being ‘in it’ to self-observing. When we step outside of ourselves and out of our experience and instead, observe the process. We are able to see and to understand that we are transitioning and growing.  We no longer feel ‘consumed’ by the experience of profound loss. We can see progress, appreciate the work we have done, know that there is still more work to be done, and trust that our future will again include joy.

Warmly, Mie Elmhirst

Coaching for Widows

For a sample session, call 508-540-4421. I will be happy to do this for you.

Well, I am having another good hair day today, and some days, that is just what you have. Good hair. I am grateful.

I am polyurethaning my floors, repairing the damage done by our now deceased and well-loved poodle Deboney, (We are getting a puppy!) and I inadvertently, of course, polyurethaned my pocketbook into my bedroom. At 6 AM. The only way to retrieve it was to polyurethane the bottoms of my feet and I was not interested.

So I drove Anneke to school without my license or coffee money. I had to beg for credit at the coffee shop which they graciously tendered. This makes good sense because I have most certainly drunk at least one ocean of Coffee Obsession coffee since Mike died. (Back then, solo morning coffee was just too hard and I moved my ritual to the shop, making friends in the process. All in all it was a good deal.) (Did I mention we are getting a puppy?)

What is really on my mind today is that my friend Beth’s partner died last week and I also just found out that my dentist, for whom I happen to care a great deal, was diagnosed with ALS.

I am in my fifties and it just seems too early for so much of this sort of thing. My heart says stop, stop…I don’t want to hear any more. Like when I was a little kid and my brother teased and I put my hands over my years and yelled “la la la la”. That is what I feel like doing now. I just don’t want to hear it. I have been there and I know what is in store for their loved ones.

Professionally, I am fine. I put on my work hat, and I work with widows and we laugh and we cry and they make strides. I love my work. I love being helpful. I love being good at what I do.

But when it strikes close to home, I resist. It seems to me, having been through the loss of my husband, that I would be good at this. After all I am a coach for widows. And in fact my community looks to me as the expert. But I lose most of my hard earned perspective when it is a personal connection and what I feel is pain and I don’t like it. I may need a coach.

And, did I mention that we are getting a puppy?

Well, we are. We are getting a miniature Australian Labradoodle. And talk about good hair… These small, snuggly, beautifully mannered, sort of calm, puppies have wicked good hair. Way better than mine. Although, I don’t shed either.

http://www.logcabinlabradoodles.com/

The idea of a new dog has been swimming around in my brain for 6 months now and when I found this particular site and kennel and heard that the  male parent of the next litter might be Willie Nelson, (the miniature Australian Labradoodle that is, not the singer) well, it felt preordained. (Mike took me to a Willie Nelson concert in 1999. I had never seen so many tatooes in one place…and then he asked me to play ‘To all the Girls I’ve loved Before”  by Willie and Julio at his funeral. I did.)

So, in the middle of more sadness and fear, we also celebrate. Each night Anneke and I talk about names, or how to gently teach a puppy to sit, or how to clean little puppy ears, or where it will sleep, or should we get the CD that plays tummy noises so that it WILL sleep, a harness for the car or not, and would I Pleeeese consider bringing it to Anneke’s high school when it is old enough so that she can show him or her off, and how do you brush a dog’s teeth? Crest? (Yes, we will need lessons.)

This little ball of fleece hasn’t even been born yet and we are joyfully planning for its college. OK, maybe not college, but puppy school…

The puppy will belong to Anneke, but please, I am not stupid. I know who will be on poop and potty  patrol etc. And, I am quite fine with that. For in a short 2 years, she/he will be mine anyway, when Anneke moves on to bigger and better places than Falmouth Massachusetts, and my empty nest will be a little less empty.

So I think about my dentist and send love and caring to his family, and I will spend some good time with Beth.

And then, I think about Anneke and how she will love having a little puppy to care for and I think about our little puppy and potty training, and I continue to slowly polyurethane the rest of our floors in preparation.

Warmly, Mie Elmhirst

For a sample coaching session, feel free to call me at 508-540-4421.

Mie Elmhirst. Help for Widows. The Widows Coach.

Me. “Tell me I’m not dying.”

My doctor. “You’re not dying Mie.”

Me. “No, no, no say it like you really mean it.”

Doctor. “You really are not dying Mie.” Deep sigh.

Me. “I don’t have cancer?”

Doctor. “No Mie, you don’t have cancer.”

Me. “Okay, just humor me one last little bit. Would you look me in the eye and say it? Like you really mean it?”

Doctor. “Okay. Mie.” Looking me straight in the eye and quite obviously just an itty bit irritated. “You. Don’t. Have. Cancer. Not even a tiny bit. And you are not going to die.”

“Thank you.”

Off the examining table I slid, once again reassured that I would live another day.

This time it was cancer of the cervix. Last time it was my shoulder, the time before that the scapula, then it was the elbow, before that it was my head (head cancer?) and the very first time it was breast cancer. I tell you, sometimes, it is hard being me.

Now I know some of my clients are reading this, and to them I say, yes, great coach and…mildly neurotic. Afraid of cancer and afraid of dying. I make no excuses.

Like Popeye said, I am what I am.

But it is not always easy to be who we are, and many of us would like to be just a bit smarter, more beautiful, grounded, courageous, thinner, curvier, more athletic, blonder, (Okay, that we can do something about. See last post), richer…

How do we get to a place of acceptance? How and when will we finally and fully appreciate the mixed bag that we are?

For me it began with widowhood. The very worst time in my life was also the start of some unexpected self-discovery. When Mike died, and I completely lost my footing, that was when I began to grow up. That was when I began to get some humility and see the truth of who I was.

Honestly, I was so repressed for the first 40-something years of my life that I had no idea that I was repressed at all. I hid who I was and played the role of a quiet, shy daughter, student, then worker,  then housewife and finally caregiver.  It was not until grieving grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and shook and shook until my pretensions went flying and I discovered the truth within.

So, I am no longer quiet or shy, I am still anxious but I don’t bother to hide it, I am awkward and funny and serious and intuitive and (yes, neurotic) and I am sure a whole lot more.

And, so are you.

Most of my clients are widows and widowers. They have also temporarily lost their footing. They most often come to coaching because they want to build a future.  But the rebuilding process is not just about a future; it is also about self-discovery.

There is much to explore in the heart and the mind of a widow.  She is a gold mine if she wishes to be.

Our futures are wide open – if we choose.

If you are coming up with reasons  why this is not true, why your future is not wide open, then you may be still deeply grieving. Or, the idea of a future that is big and glorious may be so scary that you are constructing road blocks.  Sometimes we are so afraid that we stop ourselves even before we start.

Please read the following poem Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson.

And then, call me for a sample coaching session.

Warmly, Mie      The Widows Coach

http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/quotes/williamson/our_deepest_fear/

(You may have to copy and paste.)

I am of the age where some of my friends are beginning to let their hair naturally gray. There is courage in this as we recognize that we live in a culture for which the standards vary greatly for men and for women. A man becomes distinguished as he grays around the temples; a woman becomes old as silver predominates.

I hear a bit of pride in my friends as they daringly buck the trend and embrace their natural state.  No longer are they tethered to the beauty shop every six weeks, paying God-knows-what in order to cover up those persistent roots. They are free, free, and FREE!!!

I, however, am not so free. The facts are inescapable. I feel young, always younger than my 56 years, except for when I face the mirror and the lights that surround it, allowing me not a shred of denial. Yes, I also make, every six weeks, a trip to Lisa, my favorite hair dresser of all time and I sit in front of the mirror as she puts some green sloppy stuff on my head while I pray that no one I knows walks in. (As God would have it, always, exactly at that moment someone sticks their head around the corner and says “Mie, is that you? I wasn’t sure…”

As my friends make their conversions, I wonder. Should I too go natural? Gently, and pridefully gray? (And mousily, I must add because my gray is not even close to the silvery gray of my mother.)

No! My inner sexpot screams…No! No yet! Not at 56! No! No! No!

On the other hand, Anneke is now a junior in high school and talking about colleges, colleges that look like they will require a re-mortgage. As I look ahead to payments, the money spent on my hair-genius Lisa becomes harder and harder to rationalize.

It seems to me (and I KNOW I will get in trouble for this) that going gray is easier when one is securely and happily married for 30 years, than for a 50-something widow for whom attractiveness is a social issue.

Yikes…I can’t believe that I even said that and I just know that I am going to get a lot of emails from my married friends.

So I will say up front, yes, attractiveness in a marriage matters, yes, gray can be attractive and yes, I am that shallow.

In my defense, because I think I am going to need some, I don’t mean attractiveness as much as I mean how soft and approachable we become when we care for our insides and our outsides. Self-care. There have been times in my life when I have not given a hoot about how I looked, and the world treated me in return like it didn’t really care about me either. Conversely, when I am careful with myself, the world also responds and is care-full with me.

Widowhood is a financial issue, an emotional issue, a career issue, a family issue.  And, it is a social issue.

Widowhood affects everything. It affects our appearance and it affects our social interactions. These are facts, whether we like them or not.

(Don’t tell me you haven’t thought to your self “How will I ever get naked with a man again?” I sure thought about it. I also thought “who in God’s name would want me now?” as I cried and cried and cried, missing Mike. Mike saw me through pregnancy, childbirth, and breast-feeding. He saw what happened, (the lowering of a number of my body parts) and why it happened. And, he loved it.  But I digress…)

Anyhow, all of this is just me building my case for what I did this weekend, which was to take matters into my own hands, head on down to CVS and to stare down what felt like 62 brands of hair dye and 362 colors. And what wonderful names! Dream Blond,  Espresso, Red Penny, Desert Flower, Chai Latte…

I felt powerful and I also felt a sense of betrayal. How would I face Lisa the next time I needed a hair cut? There would be no hiding my duplicity.

And what if it didn’t work and I exited the bathroom looking freakish, maybe like a 24 year-old-drugged-out-Hard-Rock Groupie? Well then, I would shamefacedly make the trip back to Lisa and she would feel good about repairing the damage, remnants of my temporary insanity. Lisa is forgiving as well as talented.

The bottom line is that when I rinsed Superior Preference by L’Oreal Numbers 6 1/2G and 7LA  (lightest golden brown and lightest auburn) out of my hair I discovered a new me. Gone were the highlights, (from hair painstakingly and painfully crochet-hooked through that plastic martian-like cap… I know you know what I mean) and I now sport a dark auburn-ish look, and although it was not what I had planned and not even close to what the box promised, it is close to what I had as a child, and I feel beautiful.

OK, I know that may seem like a rather bold statement, calling myself beautiful and all, but I feel sexier, flirtier and, dare I say it, I feel young. Yup, beautiful.

Now I know that none of this is PC – but when my 16 year old told me that she liked it, well, that was as good as it gets. This girl is honest to a fault so her seal of approval was huge.

Really, what I want to tell you is that after years spent recovering from loss, my rediscovery of play leads me in all directions. This. Was. Fun. It was experimental and scary, and fun. Go figure. Fun in a box of hair dye.

Rest assured, by about 2:00 this afternoon, I won’t care anymore about my hair.  But waking up this morning, and even now, I feel beautiful.

So, my widow friends, where can you make a difference in your own life for less than 20 bucks?

Warmly, Mie Elmhirst  The Widows Coach   Help for Widows

Please feel free to email me at mie@widowsbreathe.com for a sample session! Mie

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Rainer Maria Rilke

How difficult this is. I find myself pushing and pushing (against my understanding that I must wait), for answers; answers that obviously are not mine yet to have.

Those who have suffered trauma tend to be risk averse.

It takes a whole lot of faith and courage for a widow to make changes whether the changes are about career, family, living situations, relationships, health or money. The buck stops with us and I don’t know about you but I was not happy when I figured this out, nine years ago.

For this moderately repressed, but heart-in-the-right-place, WASP-ish New England widow, learning to trust is a challenge indeed. Mostly, I want the answers before I even know the questions. And I wanted guarantees – especially when it comes to relationships.

It seems that for me and many widows, finding a good man is not that hard. I don’t care what the dating experts say, there are men out there, and most of them are good.

But, trusting in the evolution of relationship…that is not so easy.

I want to know that he will always be in perfect health, that he will always want me, I want to know that he will stay around when he sees my worst behavior, (although I do believe he has pretty much seen it.) and I want to know that Anneke will be Ok even if he decides not to stay. I want to know that I will be OK if he decides not to stay. I want to know what will happen when we hit a rough patch.

Mostly, I want to know that I can trust myself to hang in there for what I really want, whether that means stay or leave, rather than settle or run when I get scared.

Now, I am pretty sure that he will not always be in perfect heath, I don’t know that he will always want me, or that he will stay around, or that I can trust myself to stay or leave… and I can’t even know that Anneke will be OK. I am not in charge.

But I do know that I will be OK. I do know that God/Higher Power/Spirit will nourish me no matter what happens. I lived it when Mike died.

So, although it seems that we not in control of much or, anything for that matter, our job is still to show up and do the best we can. Each year of widowhood we get a little braver, and are blessed with the courage to step just a little further outside of the box.

What is it they say about courage? That it is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to take right action even though we have fear.

So have courage fellow widows…and know that your courage, exercised each time you make a change or try something new, affects all of us and helps all of us be even more courageous. Courageous even without the answers to our many questions.

Best,

The Widows Coach, Mie Elmhirst.

Please feel free to call me 508-640-4421 for a sample coaching session. I look forward to hearing from you!

OK, this may gross you out, but by now you know that I am all about the truth.

So, the truth is that I have rats. Or, more accurately, I had rats. Not those cute little rats that they sell at PETCO; my rats were honest-to-goodness, huge, long-tailed, beady-eyed rats, probably immigrants from the restaurant dumpsters downtown.

Rats #1 and #2 made themselves quite at home under my bird feeder, eating food that was meant for finches, sparrows, and morning doves and not, needless to say, rodents.

You may ask, how this could be connected to widowhood?

When I was married, I would not have given these rats a second thought. I would have reported the situation to Mike, and my thoughts about these scary, possibly disease-infected rodents would have ceased. Mike would have taken it from there and somehow the rats would have been history. Job well done.

I have come to believe that there are girl responsibilities and boy responsibilities, and rats most assuredly are boy responsibilities.

I began widowhood afraid. I was afraid that I would fail as a single parent, afraid that I would fail as a single homemaker and really afraid that I would fail as a single home maintainer. Plumbing, electricity and roofing never interested me and until widowhood, hardly mattered. But gradually, issues presented themselves, (leaks, no heat, water in the fireplace, flooded basement etc) and I took them on, successfully, one by one.

In fact, there were a few years after Mike died when I began to feel powerful in my approach to life.  From fearful widow, I grew into someone who could take care of pretty much anything. I asked many people for lots of advice, and then took that advice home and solved each issue exactly how I pleased, reveling in my newly earned decision-making freedom.

Now, almost nine years later, there is again a man in my life. His name is Patrick. I reported my rats to Patrick, and although his first response was “Cool…get a bb gun!” (Really ladies…are all men like this? Making sport of absolutely Everything??) Anyhow, he stepped in quite wonderfully and took care of rat #1. Which was not at all pleasant because rat #1 had died under the deck and was attracting all kinds of flies and the deck hadn’t been lifted up in over 15 years. Gross. Patrick, my hero.

(About Rat #2… He seems to have left for better fields, either because I cut off his food supply, or, being no dumb rat, he saw the writing on the wall. Either way, he is gone.)

My point is that as widows we are saddled with new responsibilities, some quite masculine in the traditional sense. The trick is to hold onto our female-ness, what is essentially us, our empathy and compassion, and our talents for relationship and community building and then to grow those parts of us that are strong and practical, those parts of us that we might not have needed to exercise when we were married.

I know more about furnaces, chimneys, wood stoves, water heaters and toilets than I ever planned on knowing. That is just the way of the widow. On the other hand, I also feel strong and capable with all this information.

And when, armed with all this knowledge and information, we eventually are ready for love, and love comes knocking, we must learn again to be inclusive and to again, let go.

Really, I could have taken care of rat #1 by myself…as gross as he or she  was. But it seems to me that there is something extremely warm and loving about asking for help. When I asked Patrick to help I really did feel my heart get bigger. As if I was opening up to love just a little more. And when Patrick took care of #1, he felt good about doing this for me.

Can it be that disposing of a rat is romantic? Is it possible that taking care of a backyard rodents can bring two people closer?  Apparently so. For some women, romance is a candle lit dinner, for me it was rat duty. Go figure. It has to do with give and take. The beauty of being able to include someone and then being willing to receive, even if we could have done it ourselves.

Blessings, Mie Elmhirst   Help for Widows.

The widows coach…

Call for a sample session, 508-540-4421

Last Saturday I woke up to a CNN report about  Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and about how the marines stationed there between the late 60’s and 1980 have an unusually high rate of breast cancer – exponentially higher than in the general population – most likely due to the contamination of the drinking water by trichloroethylene, more commonly known as TCE. (Solvents typically used for cleaning).

Mike was stationed there, and as many of you know, he died of breast cancer.

Most of these men have no history of breast cancer in their families. Breast cancer in men is usually diagnosed when they are in their 60s. The men from Camp Lejeune were in their 30s and 40s when diagnosed. The Marine Corps steadfastly denies a connection between these men and the dumping of TCEs. To do so would mean that they would need to provide health care. So the men who served their country faithfully are denied health care for themselves and their families. What a shame.

Anneke and I both went into a little tail-spin this past week. After being in conversation with the CNN reporter covering this story, (Are you SURE Mike had no family history? He was only 40 when diagnosed?) I slowly began to understand what I had denied for so long…that Mike would be alive today were it not for his early military experience.  Essentially, his military experience cut his life short, similar to the men who gave their lives in active duty over seas.

But in Mike’s case, and for these many other men and affected families, there is no acknowledgment of their sacrifice.

After a week of feeling particularly low, I am now better.

Anneke, however,  is not so fine and her wound has been pried a little wider open with this latest news. “It is like he was hit by a drunk driver Mom, but the drunk driver is the government and they are not saying they are sorry.”

No, Anneke, they are not. Not yet.

But there is a group of determined men who are leading the cause, anxious to be heard. And CNN has committed to seeing this story through.

In the meantime,  I will love Anneke and understand that although the world is not always a fair place, in my small way I do get to change the world.

I change the world  when I look at Anneke and acknowledge her beauty even though she has sweat pants on with three different shades of house paint and they are too short and her hair is one big tangle. (OK, I did tell her to change her pants before going away this weekend but I saw the error of my ways and next time I promise I will keep my mouth shut!)

I change the world when I am nice to the telemarketer (OK, I confess,  last night I just hung up).

I change the world when I bring soup to the the cranky lady across the street or when I listen for over 20 minutes while Anneke relates her latest fantastical dream. No kidding – she has the longest dreams I have ever heard.

We all change the world every time we take an action that is right and loving and good.

So. Rather than pretending to be Pollyanna, I do my best when I get scared or angry, to remind myself that I can change the world, that what I do does have meaning, and that the world can feel safe once again.

Blessings, Mie Elmhirst   The Widows Coach

Please call 508-540-4421 for a sample coaching session…