Day 39

A few days after Robert died, my mom and I had to go see her heart doctor. While we were there I decided to take advantage of his expertise and get some information. I had been told my husband suffered a "massive heart attack". What I wanted to know is whether there really is something that makes one heart attack "massive" and another heart attack different. He was very kind and went into detail explaining things to me, even utilizing diagrams on the wall (it was a heart doctor, after all, so they have heart diagrams in the rooms) to explain things. What frustrated me about this conversation was that the doctor kept saying "they refer to this as the widow maker" in reference to a particular type of heart attack. It didn't occur to him as he was speaking to me that, indeed, my husband's heart attack had made me a widow. He just kept saying it, like it was a nickname. They call this "the gorge" or this one here, we call it "heart highway". I don't know. Maybe he did realize the meaning behind his words and just didn't register that, as I sat, there, a few days after my husband had suddenly and without warning, passed away, that I, in my mid 30s had just become a widow and I was totally overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by a lot of things, but that word, widow, hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember texting one of my friends and saying something along the lines of "i'm a fucking widow. this can't be real" and her response was that she knew, she had thought of that too. I feel like there are days when the weight of that word is paralyzing... but there are also days where I think that the word is some sort of badge of honor. I look at women who've gotten through this unimaginable pain and somehow, they've managed to continue living life on the other side. I don't know how they did it. I can't imagine ever getting to that point, but I also trust that, at some point, they all felt exactly as I do. What I don't have in common with these women is that I'm young, but not as young as many. So while these cute, young women all seem to move forward, fall in love again, get re-married, and have the kids they didn't get the first time around, I'm left feeling like I've been left to drift off to see. I'm not the girl who is going to bounce back and fall in love again. Robert and I were just starting to try for kids. We knew our ages were probably working against us, but it was still possible. Now? Well, now it's not possible anymore. Someone asked me the other day (or maybe week), if it would've been better if I'd been pregnant, or if we'd had kids. I don't know how I could've cared for a baby or a child through this pain. It's enough to try to care for myself and the 2 dogs. I do think, though, that in many ways, having a physical, genetic link to Robert still with me would likely be comforting, at some point.