02022020, You're Number One!

February 2nd, 2020: 02022020. Today's date is a palindrome. It reads the same backwards and forwards. Much like an old married couple, who each know what the other is thinking, and finish each other's sentences. I often say that words and images are my playground. Numbers not so much. All those two's and zero's in today's date, got me thinking metaphorically.

 

Over the years, I have listened to thousands of widows telling it like it is. Whether the loss of an intimate life partner is sudden, or takes place over a long period of illness, it is still deeply felt. You were two, and now...

How a woman sees herself is all important to her healing. It is not unusual for even the most accomplished women - CEO's, and women with global influence - to feel like they are nothing. Zero. Strong, independent women can be brought to their knees after the death of their husband. Two, then zero. Hear this: you are NEVER nothing.

I often tell the saltshaker story (February 2015:  https://widowsendorphins.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-salt-shaker.html). For as long as I can remember, the cut glass salt and pepper shakers were on the kitchen table. Not long before my husband died, I was washing them, and one of the salt shakers fell off the kitchen counter, smashing into tiny pieces. It was gone forever. I looked at the remaining shaker, and thought, it would make a nice bud vase for a flower. I put it safely up on a shelf. 

After Brande died, I saw in that saltshaker, a metaphor for widowhood. He was gone forever, but I was still alive! I was still standing! Like the saltshaker, turned bud vase, I was the same, only different. I had a new life.

It is hard for many widows to feel good about being alone with themselves. Waking up to themselves each morning, getting their own meals, having imaginary conversations in their heads. One can be a lonely number. Widows often speak of the loneliness they feel, even in a room filled with friends and family.

I don't remember when it happened. One day, I was listening to music - an eclectic mix of Motown, Soul, Blues, 60's Rock, and Brazilian beats. I was doing housework, and had the music turned up loud. I was dancing. Laughing. Feeling like a teenager again. Feeling like me! One person, at one with the universe.

In honour of Palindrome Day, the three of us (me, myself and I) leave you with some of my favourite palindromes, virtually ripped from the Facebook pages of my friend across the pond, Jae, and her Mum Sheila! 

He won a Toyota now, eh?

"Naomi, sex at Noon? Taxes", I moan.
Madam I'm Adam

Photographs Copyright of: Ruth Adams. Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.