Month: October 2019

I’m a widowed mom, not a single mom.

Posted on October 24, 2019 by - Lessons in living

I was raised by a single mother. No matter the circumstance, it’s hard. It’s SO hard. Getting up alone. Making breakfast, checking homework, finding lost shoes and missing socks. Alone. Trying to figure out how to pay bills, arrange childcare, re-build a life. Alone. Picking up kids from school, getting them to after-school activities. Alone. Coming home and making dinner and after all the kiddos scarfed their food and abandoned the table, finally being able to sit at the table to eat. Alone. Homework time, bath time, “just one more story” time. Alone. And finally sliding into an empty bed and falling asleep. Alone. But I just don’t know why it still bothers me when people refer to me as a “single mom.” Maybe it makes me sound snobbish, putting really hard circumstances into categories. But then I begin to think when I give someone sympathy when they tell me their marriage has ended and they tell me not to sympathize because they’re finally happy again  (yes I know not all divorces, relationships end that way…), I just can’t help but to think about how widowhood is just…different.

For example: It was one of the first parties I had attended since the death of my husband. I swore to myself I wouldn’t bring it up. I just wouldn’t talk about myself. For one night, I didn’t want my sad story to overshadow the fact that I was still alive and desperately needing connection. I struck up a conversation with another mom. She was ranting about this and that and throwing in, “Husbands…ugh…you know what I mean? They just don’t know how to help. Or at least mine doesn’t…So, what does your husband do?” There it was. I could lie and just say “he’s a window cleaner,” I could just say nothing and change the subject, but for some reason I couldn’t do either. “Uh, it’s just me and the kids” I struggled to say. “Ohhh, well good for you. Going it alone. Yeah, you don’t need a man, right?!” But I did. I desperately did need him. “Well, he actually passed.” I blurted out. I didn’t want sympathy, I didn’t want the awkward reaction people always seem to give after, but for some reason I needed her to know he at least existed. Maybe it wasn’t for her, but for myself.

It comes up almost every time we go out:

At the coffee shop: “Oh you’re a single mom? You and my sister should get together. She just got divorced and she is SO relieved he’s gone. He was just terrible.” But my husband wasn’t terrible. He would give anything to be here for us.

At church: “Oh yea, I know exactly what you’re going through. My husband left us. He was living a total separate life.” My husband just wanted to live his life, how can this possibly be the same?

Parks. Parties. Play dates. Friendly conversations at the store or school. It’s why I’ve avoided mom groups, and sometimes, it’s why other moms seem to avoid me. I just don’t feel like I fit in. People see a young mom with three little kids. They don’t see a ring. They don’t hear her talk about the other half. Most assume there was a divorce or maybe there was never a marriage. But never do any assume that maybe, just maybe I’m a widow. After all, the term “widow” just can’t apply to anyone under 70…right?

I can’t put my finger on why exactly I feel defensive every time someone refers to me as a single mom. I can’t figure out why I shut down the minute a single mom starts tell she can relate to me. Even some of my most treasured friends are single from divorce or other circumstances and my heart breaks for what they’re going through, but I just can’t relate. I can’t relate to the custody battles, the ex- drama, having someone else decide where the kids go and with whom, and all the trauma and heartache that goes with the death of a marriage and that future–and sometimes even the end of an abusive relationship. I can’t relate because I am not going through any of that. I can’t relate because my marriage didn’t die, my husband did. I’m not relieved it’s over. I’m not happy I get to move forward. I can’t relate to that because I watched my husband desperately cling to every breath to stay here for his children. All he talked about was one day getting our boys into baseball and how our daughter would never have a date if he had anything to do about it. We fought a different kind of fight than fighting for a marriage. But that doesn’t mean one is worse than the other. It’s not single moms vs widowed moms in “who has it worse off.” That’s not what I mean at all.

No, it’s just different. That’s all. Different.

Previously Published on www.HerViewFromHome.com

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For the single mom who feels forgotten at church

Posted on October 24, 2019 by - Lessons in living

                “There’s no place for me,” I pointed out to the church staff member who was manning the small group-sign-up table. I had walked down the long table of groups, desperate to find a place for a 28-year-old newly widowed mother of a newborn and twin toddlers.

“Well, we have a widowed group over here,” he pointed to the 50+ table. I didn’t fit in.

“And we have the couples with young children over here,” he added. But I didn’t fit in.

“And we have the singles groups over here,” he held up the table. I didn’t fit in.

I discovered early on in my young-and-widowed-and-single-parent journey I was in a group all my own. I went from church to church desperate to find my community, my village, the support for hurting, broken people that I always hear preached about, but every new church I found myself in a swarm of people smiling and chatting in groups, sipping their coffee making plans for family brunch, and I never felt more alone than I did surrounded by hundreds of people. I felt abandoned. I felt forgotten.

“But I had only just begun this journey. I had only begun to feel the weight of the burden placed upon my shoulders. It didn’t end after the funeral, it got heavier.”

Don’t get me wrong, many believers came to my family’s aid as my husband was dying of cancer and I was about to deliver our third child. Meals and money showed up at our door almost every day. I know churches around the country were praying for us. My children never went without clothing on their backs or a roof over their head. The church, not a brick-and-mortar building, but the believers who follow Jesus Christ helped to carry our burdens in a time of crisis, but after the dust settled, after the funeral flood of support trickled to a stop. But I had only just begun this journey. I had only begun to feel the weight of the burden placed upon my shoulders. It didn’t end after the funeral, it got heavier. It wasn’t the finances, it wasn’t the groceries, it wasn’t the meals or the housecleaning that made me feel like I was drowning, no, it was the stone of utter aloneness that pulled me under. I felt it every time I kissed my children “Good-night” and climbed into a cold, uninviting bed on my own. I felt it every time friends posted on Facebook about how much fun they had at couple’s night, or on their family vacation, or the girl’s night that no one invited me to because who would want the sad girl at their party? And I felt it the most when I’d sit by myself at church, watching the husband in front of me put his arm around his wife as the preacher encouraged his congregation to support and give to the missionaries serving the widows and orphaned across the sea. But they couldn’t see and they didn’t know I was there, desperately needing someone, anyone to see me gasping for air.

When time passed and I began to gain my footing again, I realized I wasn’t the only one who felt alone at church. I began to look around the sanctuary and wonder, “How many other widowed and single moms, aren’t sitting here because they feel like there’s no place for them? How many are here and won’t com back next Sunday?” It’s not that I didn’t try. It’s not that we don’t try. We wanted to go to the women’s conference but couldn’t because either it was too expensive to pay for a sitter for the weekend or we left early because the keynote speaker went on and on about the struggles of laundry and spray-tans and we just couldn’t relate. I tried several small-groups. I tried the group for widows where I found solidarity for a moment, but couldn’t juggle childcare, exhaustion and the feeling of not being in the same life season as a young mom. I tried the singles’ groups, but felt singled out as they planned happy hours and weekends away in the freedom of the “single life.” I tried the “couples with young children” groups, but the glances at my naked ring finger and wrangling three kids by myself were too much to handle. At one church, the single moms even tried to get a small group going for single moms, but we still had to figure out how to get there, feed our kids and try to find someone to watch them so we could get one hour of conversation with other adults. I tried to get a small group going for widowed parents and ran into the same snags. Both groups fizzled out because how can people who all need life-preservers help each other swim?

“I almost gave up. I almost gave up on church altogether. I almost just accepted that I was just alone and didn’t fit in. But I didn’t give up and you shouldn’t either. I started to change my perspective. I started to see that maybe God was using this aloneness to tap into the loneliness of others.“

I almost gave up. I almost gave up on church altogether. I almost just accepted that I was just alone and didn’t fit in. But I didn’t give up and you shouldn’t either. I started to change my perspective. I started to see that maybe God was using this aloneness to tap into the loneliness of others. To encourage me to turn suffering into service. To encourage me to ask for help and not assume everyone can see the invisible neon sign that was blinking “please help me I’m a widowed mom by myself” that I was SURE everyone could see…but they couldn’t, they didn’t know because I didn’t tell them. I didn’t want to be a charity case, and I didn’t want people to include me just because they felt sorry for me. And because I didn’t want all that, that meant that I needed to care first. I needed to be the first so say, “Hello.” I needed to serve someone else before expecting to be served. I needed to give first before expecting to be given to. I needed to be brave and meet with leaders in the church to tell them my struggles and my awareness of the struggles of others in the same boat as me, even if that vulnerability might mean disappointment and further feelings of abandonment if the church couldn’t help with whatever was needed most at the time. I needed to remember that current disappointment might be God’s sign to start the ministry that no one else knew was needed.

Please, mama, don’t give up on church even if it feels like they’ve given up on you. They’re just people. They just don’t know how to help. They just. Don’t. Know. We’re here to show them how and let God do the rest. Church might, and probably will, let you down at some point, but God will not and has not.