Death can be contagious. Not disease, but heartbreak. If you read the headstones in a cemetery, you can find dates that show a husband or a wife has followed his or her loved one into the grave within a matter of months.
Cancer or another disease may be the official explanation, but rest assured - it was heartbreak. It happens all the time. I could have died after my husband passed away at the young age of 43. But I didn't have that luxury. I had two daughters to take care of aged 14 and 11.
I have not become a single parent. I have become an only parent. The grief that follows rips families apart. There is grief after divorce, but there are still two living parents. While they may live in different homes, they are parenting together. The grief when one parent dies runs much deeper. It's obvious to outsiders the family is no longer complete. But it isn't just the separation of the living from the dead. It's the separation of the living from the living.
When my husband died after collapsing while playing floor hockey in March, 2005, I wanted to die too. I felt dead. How could I carry on without him? I learned my feelings were normal.
A broken heart is all-consuming and left me with little time and less energy to focus on anything else. I was drowning in sorrow, literally. It was all I could do to breathe. I lost sight of my priorities - my children, my family, my obligations, all the things I once loved. I got caught up in the grief and that became my full-time job.
When my husband died I did die, in many ways. And so my children didn't lose one parent. They lost two. Here they were needing me most and I was AWOL. Unwashed. Dishevelled. Most days, I never left my bedroom, much less my bed. I rarely went outside the house for almost a year and a half.
I forgot to shower. I forgot to eat. I forgot how to dress. My underwear was often on inside out. People brought prepared food and groceries over. I didn't pick up the phone. My daughters learned to fend for themselves. My head knew I wasn't getting things done, but my heart was controlling my head. When your heart and your head are on the same page, life is conflict-free. But when your heart and your head are feeling or acting like polar opposites, life slips out of control.
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It has taken me four long years to get to today. I'm much stronger than I ever realized and I love my daughters so much. I'm sorry that I missed the last four years of their lives, and my own. But I couldn't help it. I was dead inside. Empty. You never get over the loss of your husband - your best friend, your children's father and your future. What you do get is better coping skills to deal with the pain, the loss and the devastation.
Until recently, going to work was all I was doing. But I've been suffering cabin fever these past few months. This is a good sign. It says to me my gaping wound has now scarred over. It still hurts but it's a deep ache, a longing that will never go away. I don't bleed profusely any more, so to speak.
I refuse to be an absent mother any longer. I want to be the best parent I can be. That means paying attention to my girls and managing the house and keeping them worry-free. I am two parents now. I have to do things I never even thought of before. I change furnace filters now. I mow the lawn. Where once I only helped with English and geography homework, now I have to contend with math and science homework too. Their father was a science and math teacher. Not my strong suit. One of the worst things about not having a man in the house is that us girls have to kill bugs. We're squeamish. I curse my husband every time a centipede creeps by at mach speed.
So here we are. We have survivor guilt, and a lot of broken dreams. When I smile or laugh, I wonder what others are saying. Is this the way a widow should act? Will they think I loved my husband any less? Am I being disrespectful to him or his memory?
I don't think so. I'm a parent and as such I must teach my girls everything I can. I need them to become well-adjusted adults, which is hard enough in normal times. Having lost their father at such a young age makes it more difficult. But I know the best way to do it now. Steal a page out of Danny's own handbook.
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He was not only the best husband a girl could have and a wonderful father but also a fabulous high-school teacher and coach. He always said talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. So I am not preaching now, I am acting. I am embracing whatever I can.
I bake for the girls like before. I am teaching them how to play backgammon. I play mahjong once a week like I used to more than four years ago, and I am rejoining my book club. I just started tennis lessons. My daughters are looking at me with wonder.
And I just booked us a spectacular tropical vacation for next year. It's time. I want to have some fun. This means they can have fun. This gives them permission. Because when I was drowning in sorrow and self-pity, they didn't know what to do with themselves. I need to show them that we carry on. Even with broken hearts.
My eyes are on target now. I see the sun and feel its warmth. I can laugh. I can try to fulfill all the dreams we once had as a family, or make some new ones. It took more than four long years to get here, but I choose life.
Sharon Salsberg lives in Toronto.
Illustration by Paddy Molloy.