New school year - advice for newly widowed parents

[Guest TooSoon]

For all of you newly widowed parents, my heart goes out to you along with this message:  you can do it.

 

Even though my husband's diagnosis was terminal and I had two years to get used to the reality of what I faced, I was a blithering, terrified, paralyzed, traumatized, and yes, a somewhat angry and bitter mess about parenting alone when he died.  As the career person in our family, I was suddenly thrust into my worst nightmare.  Working full time and raising a 6 year old who had spent the past two years watching the person she was closest to and loved the most in this world wither away and die.  A reluctant parent to begin with, the reality of parenting alone brought me to my knees.  It was not pretty. 

 

The good news is, things are better.  Things are good.  There is a bittersweet wistfulness and constant exhaustion but I've never been more proud of anything in my entire life than what the two of us, my daughter (now eight) and I have accomplished together these past three years and the unconventional, disorganized but often fun, funny and loving life we can now call our own. 

 

I wanted to start this thread so that some of us further down the line can offer some wisdom from the lessons we've learned along the way or things we wish someone had told us early on. 

 

The best advice I can give is this: a) be forgiving of yourself always, keeping in mind that tomorrow is another day and getting myopic is counterproductive in the extreme (I know this from painful experience);  and b) try to remember and remind yourself that others' married lives aren't universally the picture perfect worlds we might think, in our isolated, frightened state, that they seem always to be in comparison to ours.  For instance, when I told a married friend, who by all appearances seemed to have it all together, that I hadn't had sex in almost 3 years, she said, "Neither have I."  We can easily lose perspective sometimes.

 

Oh and ask for help.  Ask for all of the help you can get so that you can carve out some time for yourself, and use it in whatever way will help you to regain a sense of "grown up" identity.  This has been so critical for me - I cannot even put into words how important this was for me once I started asking for it.  It should have been item "a" on this list.  If you don't have family, if you can't afford a babysitter, then come here and ask others who have been there how they managed to do it.  It is solo parenting survival mechanism #1 in my book.  It does not matter if you lie in bed or run a half marathon, but finding some time to recharge, regroup and - at least in my case - recover from days on end talking to no one but a 6 year old (at the time) it is necessary and essential for survival - like drinking water and breathing. 

 

We each parent differently but try to be confident in what feels true to you and your values.  You will always find solidarity and new ideas here and of course, copious amounts of understanding and support.  If all of the parenting posts from YWBB, the former iteration of this board had been archived so you could read them, you would have found the comfort of knowing that whatever challenge you face, some other Mom or Dad has experienced it too, but since that is not the case, rest assured that you can find a safe place here, a refuge, where no child's behavior is too off the charts and no level of frustration is too much.  All of the parents here get it and someone will always appear with a fresh perspective or just simple validation.  In sum, those of us who've been around for a while are here for you now.  So rant, rave and post away.  We get it.  I am always available if you want to PM me, too.

 

Anyone else want to chime in? 

[Sugarbell]

Great idea TS!!

 

It's been quite a while since I was newly widowed....but a few things I remember about parenting that first year.:

 

It's OK for your kids to see you cry. Trust me...they will become more empathetic to others feelings as they get older.

 

It's OK to do school drop off in your pajamas. I wore mine every morning to drop my oldest off at school that first year. The worse I looked the more willing people were to help (nothing like a Mom showing up in Pjs with a baby and toddler with swollen eyes to put it right in the worlds face.

 

DO NOT compare yourself to any other Moms...both IRL and even on here. Everyone has different struggles/circumstances.

 

Family/friends to babysit. Also I became best friends with the teenage girls in the neighborhood and their parents. Had them on speed dial for sitters.

 

Churches usually have parents night out a few times a year. You don't have to be a member...4 hours for babysitting a family of kids-it was never over 25.00

 

Hopefully someone with chime in with parenting preteens/teens that first year of grief. I had a new born, toddler and 4 year old so I didn't have to really handle any kids major social issues.