Widowoman - A Journey Into Widowhood

A few days after the funeral I started to notice some things happening in my body that were a bit frightening. I knew there would be an emotional impact of losing him and that would last  a long time but this was different. This did not have anything to do with losing Ned or my grief. This was physical. The first thing I noticed was in the shower. When I closed my eyes to shampoo my hair I lost my balance and fell against the wall. What was that about? I had no problems with my balance since I got my knees replaced a couple of years earlier. At first I thought it was just a fluke. You know, a one time occurrence probably brought on by not drinking enough water or eating enough. After all, eating was not high on my priorities that week. The thing is that the situation did not improve. Every time I took a shower or closed my eyes for any reason, I started to lose my balance. It was so prevalent that I started to take extra care to keep from falling in the same way I had before knee

On March 23rd, 2011, my husband of almost 45 years died suddenly in the early morning hours when a pulmonary embolism took his life in an instant. In one moment I went from "until death do us part" to being parted from the man I had lived with and loved for two-thirds of my life for the rest of my life. What I did not know at that time was that I had also just entered an alternate universe - one that I had no idea was there and no idea how to navigate. The next few days were filled with family, arrangements, tears, laughter, decisions about things like embalming and how many police escorts and limos were needed. The story of those days brings tears, smiles, pain, and comfort all at once. In some ways the busyness of the time between Ned's death and the funeral postponed the realization of just how much my life had changed. And then, on Saturday afternoon, just three days after Ned's sudden death, everyone went home and I found myself in a new reality.  For the fir