Welcome to my blog – Widowing Empty Nests. A space for me, Emma, to put some of the writing I do about my new life, a life I didn’t expect, didn’t want, but is.
In the space of less than a year, I went from being married to the man I had known and loved since meeting him when I was 20, with our three teenage kids living at home, to being widowed with all three kids leaving home.
Empty Nesting was not one of my worries. I was aware it was coming up and I know many couples find it hard. But I was not worried about it. In fact I was looking forward to having more time with Mike, taking short holidays out of kids’ holiday seasons, doing what we loved to do that the kids don’t necessarily all love, and just being together more. We had vague ideas of me moving to Zurich where Mike worked during the week, and where I can easily be based with my freelance work.
But none of that happened. Mike died. Within a four and a half month timeframe of feeling a tugging sensation on the side of his body that didn’t go away. Pancreatic Cancer. Metastasized in four locations. Two types of chemo cocktails did nothing but weaken him and make his beautiful soft hair fall out.
Mike is no more. No more in my life. No more in the kids’ lives. It’s only 15 months on. A blink of the eye. While a guillotine came crashing down on my world, my universe, my solar system, somehow the world keeps doing its thing. It carries on.
Rivers still flow
Winds still blow
Mountains stand tall
Autumn leaves fall
The Sun continues to rise
That I keep breathing is a surprise
No – I am not a poet, nor wanting to be
But I need to build a new life for me
Out of this devastating
Wreckage
This blog will be about some of that. And other things. The blog will be what it will be. I’ll post my early grief writing here. It’s not designed to teach, to educate, but great if it does. It’s for me.
A place to spend time, reflecting on my life as I build it. A space to honour Mike and what we have created. I’ll perhaps even put the odd story of the kids, though they are – quite rightly – sensitive about anything their mum puts about them online.
It will shape up as it shapes up. Like my life. No plan. Just an emergent space.
Day by day. Moment by moment. Breath by breath.
11th July 2018
Che belli che siete! Quanto amore. Quanto dolore.