Rebuilding My Road: What I Have Learned in My First Year of Widowhood

One year ago my life changed forever. The change actually started on Easter Sunday, 2025, leading to the death of my husband in September, 2025. A year ago my life's road stopped. A "dead end" sign popped up and I was left without a compass to find my way while forced into a club no one wants to join. From holidays to birthdays to a million other "firsts" my little family survived them all. And while I certainly have a long way to go in finding my path on this nightmarish journey, I have learned a thing or two along the way.

Family

Surrounding myself and my teenage boys with family every chance we got was one of the single most important decisions I made. Early on I worked hard not to isolate myself and to make sure that my husband's family was still a huge part of mine and my boys' daily lives. From weekly coffee dates with my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws to walks with my husband's niece to going out to dinner with family and daily check ins, family saved me from day after day on the couch staring at the wall. I did a lot of that, (some would argue too much of that), and I still do, but it could have been so much worse.

Being surrounded by my husband's grieving family gave me opportunities to commiserate and, eventually, smile at memories. Their willingness to grieve with me, which they continue to do, assured that I felt a part of the family still, even without my husband. Nephews-in-law helping to fix a lawnmower and taking my son to baseball games, my husband's cousins sending cards and texts and everyone mourning with me truly made a difference in how this first year could have gone.

Family is important while grieving. I have many widow friends, (new friends thanks to this horrendous club we are now in), who don't have family and I have seen first hand how much more difficult that has made their grieving process.

So if you can., keep family close on the bumpy grief road.

Friends

Friends are as important as family. Reach out to your circle. Tell them how you are feeling and outright ask for what you need. Your friends want to help and it is true, they often don't know how to do that. Remind them to keep inviting you out, even if you keep saying "no". Let them feed you and help you clean your house. Let them do all the things you are currently unable to do. Lean on them as much as you need to- they will hold up. Friends must be on the road as well, preferably with alcohol and fried foods.

Find an Outlet

Find an outlet for your anger. Your frustrations. I found myself screaming loudly in the car or in my office when I would hit yet another wall or find yet another death task that needed completed. I now have a space in my daily journal that is separate from the task list titled "Widow Work". It lists the one thing I really need to do that day related to the business of being a widow. And what a business it is. There are forms to fill out. Money to move. Cars titles to transfer. Utilities to change names on and more forms to complete. I am a year in and I am still working with a lawyer, still filling out forms and still changing names on accounts. It is a process and it doesn't need to be completed all at once. But you will get frustrated by how often it pops up and you will need an outlet.

You will also need an outlet for all of the stupid things people will say to you. "Everything happens for a reason." "Really Susan? What reason might that be?"

"He is in a better place now." "Personally, I think his place is here, with me."

"You are so strong." "I'm strong because I have to be. I don't feel strong when I can't get out of bed on a random Tuesday."

These are well meaning people saying well meaning things. But you might want to throat punch them and you will need an outlet so you don't get arrested. Maybe you can't scream in your office. Maybe you take up meditation or kick boxing or forest bathing. Just make sure you have outlets on your grief road.

Lower Your Expectations

This is is crucial. You will need to lower your expectations across most, if not all aspects of your life. Lower your housekeeping expectations. Lower your home cooked meal expectations. Lower all expectations and let go of the guilt that comes with that. Pre Widow Beth was organized. Worked a full time Corporate America job with the title, overtime hours and salary that comes with it. Pre Widow Beth made homecooked meals for her family, kept the house mostly clean and got everyone to where they needed to be on time, in clean clothes and well fed.

Widow Beth didn't cook for a year and has only cooked a handful of meals recently. She ignores dust bunnies and leaves dishes in the sink. Widow Beth has slept through her alarm so many times that her senior in high school has been tardy three times so far and it is only September. There are toddler size weeds in her front lawn and laundry in the dryer.

One of the things I didn't expect about widowhood was how exhausting it would be. I don't just mean the sadness or the loneliness. I mean the mental exhaustion of making every decision, the physical exhaustion of simply getting through the day, and the emotional exhaustion of carrying a loss that never really takes a day off. Even the smallest things can feel like enormous accomplishments when you're using so much energy just to navigate a life you never planned to live. So lower those expectations and serve your kids cereal for dinner. (Just make sure the milk has not expired. I'm not saying I did that but I'm not not saying it either...)

Friends May Flake Out

Speaking of lowering your expectations... Your circle will most likely get smaller in some ways and bigger in others. What I mean is this; your old friends, your " go to" people, might not be there for you in ways you wished they would be. Some will be, and those who stick it out will be amazing. But some won't respond to your asks for help. Some won't text to check in or invite you out. And that is OK. This grief journey is not for the weak and not everyone is cut out to walk alongside us. Remember, our grief road is bumpy and full of sinkholes.

Your friend group will slowly change, gathering up other widows and widowers you meet along the way. These new friends may be people you never would have crossed paths with had death not thrown a huge boulder directly at you bowling ball style, but they will become lifelines. They will be the ones to pull you out of those sinkholes and set you back on your path. No explaining feelings or needs. Just nods of understanding and hugs all around. It is vital that you find these people. Grief groups allow you to meet others in your same situation and share, and learn, from their experiences.

Find a Grief Group

Some grievers go it alone. I am not one of those grievers. I needed a group to work through feelings of loss and anger, and in that group I found others who felt the same way. I cannot overstate how important it is to find others who understand how you feel because they feel it too. Friends are great, family is wonderful, but no one understands spouse loss until they have lived it. Period. Find a group and if it isn't for you find another one. The support of my grief group friends has been immeasurable.

And while I'm talking about groups, find yourself a therapist, if you feel you need it. Individual grief counseling is something I just started, as I head into my second year without my better half I would like to shout from the rooftops how helpful it has been. If you feel you might benefit from therapy don't hesitate, just schedule the first appointment.

Give Yourself Grace

You spent years with your spouse. Years and years, days and days, minutes and minutes of dancing the life dance together. Years of knowing what they are thinking, of knowing what they are going to order in a restaurant and how they like their coffee. Knowing that when a server asks, "Is Pepsi OK?", they are going to say "No." Night after night of listening to them breath as they sleep and morning after morning of hearing them sing in the shower. Countless jokes, innuendos and thoughts have traveled between you and all of that has suddenly disappeared. It can be jarring and difficult to have your routines upended like that. For months I didn't want to cook because my husband would often hang out in the kitchen while I made lunch or dinner, keeping me company, making me laugh, discussing important life decisions and making me smile. I didn't want to attend church because sitting alone in our row felt off. I didn't want to sit with anyone else, but I also didn't want to sit alone.

There was no one to get me up in the morning, to read the news with, to compete over the Wordle. There was no one showing up in my office mid day, reminding me it was time for lunch or texting me when I was out with friends just to tell me I was missed and loved. And all of this is surreal and disorienting. So give yourself grace and take it one moment at a time. Day by day you will create new routines and you will come out of the fog. I am not 100% there yet but I am functioning at a much higher level than I was at first. Not beating myself up about all the things I wasn't doing took time to learn but with practice I figured it out. Think of it as forging a new pathway. At first it is a grassy field, wide open and with terrifying cliffs around every bend. Then you walk the field enough to create a dirt path, the grass beaten down by your repeated movements. Eventually it becomes a bumpy, rock filled road full of sinkholes and sudden dead ends. I'm assuming it continues to grow into a paved road with fewer dead ends- at least that is what I am hoping.

And finally, I learned that laughter and joy can coexist with grief. I learned that my grief will always be with me and that I need to grow my world and my life around it. (Thank you grief group for teaching me this.) I have to create new routines, try new things and figure out who I am now. Learning to laugh and experience joy again can be a guilt inducing project but it is the only way to move forward. I will not "get over" my grief. I will not heal completely. I will always have this grief in me, walking alongside me, hanging out in my home and darkening my world. And some days it will be visible and life will be cloudy and that is OK. Other days I will still be able to enjoy my life, albeit a life I was never expecting to have to live. Or at least not at my age.

A year in I laugh sometimes. I can have fun with my friends. I cry every day too. I am navigating a road fraught with landmines, gut punches and guilt over the good times, but that also has exit ramps to small villages of laughter and true enjoyment.

I don't know where my road is leading. All I know is that I can't sit on the side of the road, in the ditch that is grief while all the other travelers pass me by. Of all the things I've learned in this first year of widowhood the fact that I must keep taking this new road is probably the biggest "ah ha" moment. As I enter into Year Two without my husband I am going to continue to travel one day at a time, with lots of rest stops and side trips into sadness and frivolity. My road is broken and messy, but it is also being built right before my eyes, one paved moment at a time.