The "new normal" that does not offer a refund. The Grief Language Project®

The “new normal” that does not offer a refund.

I’m coming up to 6 years widowed. 6 years.

The reflection of my reality and my widowed grief journey, feels surreal. It comprises of immense tragedy, grief, love, hope, bonds and connections. The full mix of emotions and memories. Grief is a lifelong process.

The cognitive processes that take place when we experience grief are complex. It can be overwhelmingly exhausting, in a world where we are pressured to function at such a high, and ridiculously fast rate.

Even when we might not want to wake up, because our ‘normal life’ has been smashed to smithereens by a death and grief; the pressure to function still exists in the human life design of waking up each day.

Each day we still wake up and we are still faced with our ‘new normal’. This new normal is not what we asked for or want. We can’t trade it for our old normal. There is no in store, service counter, offering returns and refunds for this new normal!

We are forced to take it, to live it. Even when we can’t see forward to the next hour, or the next day. What we need to do next, is build our new normal. To create it, and keep what works, and throw away what doesn’t work.

It takes time. It takes time to build our new normal. It takes patience. It takes unimaginable, brute, inner strength and every single drop of energy that your mind, body and spirit holds.

It can be utterly exhausting. But, even through this exhaustion, a new normal CAN be built. And it can be one filled with love, living, future, and hope.

Building our new normal can be helped along by allowing others in to help, and asking for help with the build. People around us want to help, but quite often aren’t sure how. So it’s up to us to let them know how they can help.

What does help look like? It might be help by offering ears to listen, it might be help with buying a loaf of bread, cooking a dinner, weeding the lawn, feeding your pet, support in making a call.

So know, that you do not have to build your new normal on your own. People around you want to help. It is about asking for help, and most importantly allowing help in.

Contact Michelle for more information on The Grief Language Project® and how the Project can help your community become more fluent in grief language and know how to support each other in building a new normal after experiencing a death.

So here is the write up from me and my share for International Widows Day: Widowhood is grief, and one of the deepest forms of grief a person can ever experience. It is a type of grief that I would never wish on my worst enemy. It is unfathomable to explain just how horrendous, devastating and lonely widowhood grief can feel. Yesterday, I did not write this blog like I had planned originally, because I was out spending time with one of my children. And let me tell you, as a widowed parent, I have spent most of my early widowhood feeling like I was the shittiest parent ever.

Firstly, because suddenly I was doing a job that I never signed up to do on my own. What a joke that was. It was supposed to be two of us. Nathan and I – riding the rollercoaster of parenting together. He was supposed to be alive and keep working as a parenting team alongside me.

Secondly, because even though I tried my best throughout all of my parenting, it was not always great. My children were not only managing their own grief, but they were also experiencing their mother’s grief. At times it as not pretty and was damned right ugly at times. I’m not proud of that.

My window of tolerance very small with irritability and impatience a go to in my mothering survival. I know what they have seen is a mum who has struggled with grief missing their Dad (and Step Dad). They have had a mum who has not ticked all the boxes of being a perfect parent. But lets face it… that’s a load of rubbish as there is no such thing as a perfect parent, only an ideal.

As a young widowed parent, I was forced to be questioning how I was going to continue find ways to keep feeding my children? How was I going to keep a roof over our heads long term? Could we stay living in our family home? Because one half of the household income is no longer there to pay the bills and Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs was under threat. Because there is no crisis widowed payment from Centrelink (another issue for another write up) and it’s walking away from Centrelink with no support and in deep grief after asking for help with a “too bad, so sad” response.

Let me tell you that the feeling of not knowing if you can keep your house, some kind of continuing lifestyle for your kids, or how you are going to pay the car registration and many other bills that keep arriving, is absolutely terrifying and only serves to compound grief missing your person.

And that is just scratching the surface of what widowhood is about. Because when our person dies, our entire life turns into something we do not recognise, do not know, did not ask for, and never wanted. Within this deep grief, we are forced to continue pushing through to the next day. But quite often, that is too much. People wanting to help around make statements of good intent and say “just get through the next day”… NO. This is about getting through the next hour or the next minute. It is survival mode at it’s purest.

Yes, time has gone on for me. I never thought it would. But here we are, me writing, you reading, 8 years after Nathan died. My life has changed immensely in ways that I never thought possible. And also, as a widow, when I have days like yesterday, where I am functioning and multitasking like a boss again, and also spending quality time with my kids, that has to be celebrated, and means that it’s OK to write this blog a day late.

To non-widowed parents, yesterday, might have seemed like just another average day. Just another day of doing routine tasks. But for me, and for many widowed people out there, it is an achievement in grief, and in life. Maggie Dent, an incredible Parenting Expert advocates that ‘You just have to be a good parent 30-40% of the time’ on her “Good Enough Parent” podcast. So, yesterday, as a widowed parent, to be able to get through the day and feel like a “good enough parent” is something worth celebrating and I’m high fiving myself. I know Nathan would be high fiving me right back from the heavens. So I’ll take that and embrace it.

Because the reality is that for many widowed people, we can lower those percentage numbers… because running on empty and still making it to the end of the day.. or the end of the hour in one piece and only ‘just’ functioning is a huge achievement when experiencing deep grief.

To all of my widowed friends and peers out there who are pushing hard though each day, please know that you are freaking amazing. Huge credit to you for arriving at this point in time, right now. You are doing great, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I see you. Remember that you are not alone.

Celebrate the small wins. And remember that although it might not feel like it, there is hope and there is a future ahead.

As we move into the day after International Widows’ Day, others may move forward, but we remember.

We live being widowed every single day.

If you know someone who is widowed and grieving, please let them know about the Grief Connect® Community. A space for grief to be shared and supported by peers in live online conversations and posts. Access the community by clicking the button below.