This is the voice of the widowed Mom

This is the voice. The voice of the widowed Mom. Not every widowed Mom has a platform to stand up and speak her truth so today I'm going to climb up on my platform and speak for her. She feels broken but she is beautiful. She gets lonely but she gets all her kids hugs and kisses. She sometimes feels lost but her kids are her compass. She cries in the shower, in traffic, in the garage, and in the basement. She deserves a free lifetime supply of kleenex to softly catch her many tears of sadness, frustration, and fear. She is scared but every single day she puts on her authentically brave face for her kids. She has seen death but yet she craves more life. Her laugh is the realest thing you will ever hear because if you can laugh after you've buried your spouse and told little children their parent is never coming home? Then your laugh is coming straight from the heavens......straight from your heart. She is full of grit. She has more inner-strength than most men even though she doesn't believe it or feel it most days. She can care for kids, do laundry, work, mow the lawn, grieve, and remember all her friends birthdays. She is two women rolled into one. She is the woman she was before his death and she is the woman she has become after. She worries. She has no other parent to ask about things to do with the kids. She has to tune in to her divine intuition every single day to answer all the endless questions she has about how to care for her children. Her voice is the only one they can hear so she has to make sure that it's real, honest, and loving. This is the voice of the widowed Mom. Every single day she wakes up and wonders how she will get it all done. And every single night she goes to bed, kisses her kids, and tries again tomorrow. She's not perfect. She sometimes feeds her kids cereal for dinner and sometimes she feels guilty for not knowing how to stretch herself to fit all the needs of her children. She goes days without taking a shower but her kids are happy and smiling. She rarely has time to herself but she stays up late to connect with other widows online and without that.....she might not know how to make it in this new solo parenting world. Sometimes she feels defeated. Sometimes she wonders if she's enough for her kids. She's broken, and messy, and imperfect. And because of all of that and the fact that she shows up every day for her children? She's the perfect Mom for them and that's all that matters. This is the voice. The voice of the widowed Mom. She's not like the other Mom's who have their husband. She's doing all that they do....and most of what their husbands do.....all on her own. You see her and think she's brave. She doesn't always feel brave. She feels like a small child who is confused and lost and wishing for a rescue boat. She doesn't always know how to find her voice....to speak up for what she needs. She needs friendship, comfort, love, and understanding. She wants a hot bubble bath, a nap, and she still has dreams. She dreams of falling in love again. She dreams of traveling. She dreams of new careers and painting her kitchen pink. She is still a woman. She wants to laugh with her girlfriends over bottles of wine. She wants to hike to the top of a mountain and yell, "I made it! After everything life took away from me....I made it." She wants to watch her children grow and hopes that they are ok after everything they have endured and lost. She wishes others understood her pain but she knows that they can't unless it happened to them. She thinks that someday she will write beautifully haunting poetry about all of this suffering but right now she just has to survive it. This is her voice. This is her heart.

Author: Nikki Bonkoski 2017