Widow's Dance

Two steps back . . .

One step forward,

Two steps . . .

That’s the wrong way to dance. But I’m not dancing. I’m barely breathing sometimes. I’m just pantomiming the life I know I have to live. Bowing to the shadows, taking my cue from the rising sun, I make my way out of bed, do the things, shut out the lights, and go back to bed at the end of a long day of surviving.

Day after day after day.

There’s no calendar for this. No roadmap. I don’t know where I’m going or when I’m supposed to get there. I don’t know if I’m doing this right. Or wrong. Most of the time I feel like I’m carried along by momentum. Caught up in this awkward, painful dance. Trying. God, how I am trying. But I can’t feel the rhythm. It doesn’t seem to exist in this silent vacuum devoid of Rob.

I don’t know what my purpose is anymore. I am loved. Surrounded by family, supported by them and my friends, I know I am loved. I take care of my own business. Pay my bills. Clean my room. Do my laundry. Drum my fingernails. Escape in my truck. Eat too much sugar. Hope for a sign that Rob sees me and prays for me. That’s not very Baptist of me, but I’m not much of a Baptist anymore.

What I am is, suddenly, against my will, retired. I’m a retired housewife. An out of work homemaker. Once skilled at caring for my husband, my services are no longer required. There’s no employment bureau to turn to. How weird would that be? The worst part is how inexperienced I am at being a widow. Turns out you don’t need to know anything about it before you’re placed in that position. It goes hand in hand with retirement. I even qualified for a widow’s pension, courtesy of the Social Security Administration. They gave me a one-time paycheck of $255.00 for being my husband’s widow. I don’t know how they arrived at that figure or whether it was a reflection on me or Rob, but it was an insult regardless.

That’s what death feels like. An insult of the worst kind. No matter how well you took care of yourself and the one you loved, death is inevitable and rarely is it a "buy one get one free" opportunity. One of you is gone. One of you is retired. Left to dance alone. In the dark and the silent void.

One step forward.

Two steps back.

Out of rhythm.

Bowing to the shadows in pantomime.

With thanks to Soffie Hicks for permission to use the phine photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following the link below:

Dancing ghost feet | Soffie Hicks | Flickr