Don't Call Me Fragile

So I've got about five blogs swimming around in my head, and no time in which to blog them... but when have I not chosen to procrastinate on a big paper four days before it's due? I may end up having to take Wednesday off from life.

Anyway the River Pretty Writers Retreat was this weekend, and it went well I think. I really love getting a chance like that to be away from the rest of the world for a while and getting to know people better. I  made a lot of new friends this weekend and strengthened several that were made last semester.

Something that is interesting about the workshops in the writing retreat: We are given writing prompts or exercises and then somewhere between 10 or 20 minutes to write. Then someone reads what they've written and everyone else reacts to it. I've noticed that I tend to write non-fiction in these workshops, because it's hard for me to be spontaneously creative in that way. (For instance, of the three or four exercises this weekend, only one was fiction.)

It's a little rough because a lot of what I write about is being a widow. I think I just need to accept that I need to write a memoir to get out all the stuff, instead of revisiting it over and over and over. Widowhood dominates my writing more than it does my life.

Interestingly enough though I had three very distinct widow experiences this weekend.

One (and chronologically the final one) happened in conversation. One of my writing friends is a poetry guy and somehow over the course of the last 6-8 months that I've known him he didn't know about Nathan. So we were helping a girl who had gotten pretty intoxicated get to bed and he made a comment about his wife having a lot of health problems and so he was sort of trained to take care of sick people. And I agreed, and made some comment about recovering from caretaker fatigue. I said something about taking care of someone with cancer, thinking that he already knew my background, and he asked who and I said, "Oh... my husband."

We had been walking and he stopped dead in his tracks. He had no clue. He asked if he could give me a hug. I obliged, half because he looked like he needed a hug. Several times the rest of the weekend he commented on my strength.

Two happened at the student reading (I really can't remember if this reading was before or after the next experience, but I've got a organizational plan which places this one here.) One of my friends from the last retreat read a story, a fictional piece which takes place 10-15 days after his wife dies. (His wife is not dead.) He mentioned it was the most difficult thing he's ever written and the hardest thing he's ever had to do. It was really interesting to hear what he thought it would be like for him... It made me think about how, before Nathan died, I thought I might handle his death. It isn't the first time I've said this, but before he got sick I thought that if Nathan ever died I'd become a hermit. I'd run off to the upstairs of my parent's house and become a hermit, and never venture out into the world again. That's what I thought. This friend was very concerned about what I thought and how I reacted to his piece, but I can't be insulted by someone truly trying to imagine what life would be like. He said a lot of things that weren't at all like what I'd gone through... but he said some things that were right on. And that doesn't mean that he was wrong about how he'd react-- it just means that he is not like me. It did make me slightly paranoid (as I often am) that the way I handled Nathan's death makes it look like I didn't love him with all that I had. But that's my weird issue, not his. And it was sweet of him to be concerned about my reaction.

And then there was the third experience, which also happened at the student readings. A boy from Oklahoma read something he'd written from the perspective of a Marine Family Relations Officer. I can't tell you what the story was about... at all. Because towards the beginning of the story he read the words, "fragile widows."

And it was all I could do for the rest of his reading was not walk up to him and punch him in the nose and then yell, "Who's fragile now!?!"

I was ticked.

Not only was I mad for the cause of widows everywhere, but I happen to be dating a Marine. Now it's true he's not an FRO, but one of the many reasons I like my Marine is that my widowhood says to him that I'm very strong. He has seen widows in mourning and he does not call them fragile. He calls them strong. I was so put off by how wrong this guy's casual reference to myself and my sisters in grief was.

It really angers me how prevalent this idea of the flawed-ness or fragility of widows is in society. Maybe it comes from the people who try to imagine (like me, once) what they would do if they lost their spouse. **This is different from my friend who honestly and sincerely put himself through the real imagining of what would happen. Much like an actor he put in the work to make himself that character-- to have that character's experiences.** Maybe it comes from the pity. I heard a woman say to my friend (after he made a general announcement that his wife had not died) how glad she was to hear that his wife was alive because she'd been feeling so sorry for him.

Again, a reason I appreciate Jason. He does not pity me. He wishes that I hadn't had to go through it, but he doesn't pity me. He also doesn't view the terrible side note that I once had a husband who died as something that's wrong with me. In fact he's baffled by the fact that anyone would.

I'm a widow, and that simple fact has taught me that I have a core of steel. Much of what I am has been stripped or blown away, but that doesn't mean I'm fragile. I've been tested. If life is a fist fight I've been fighting a berserker who is three times my size and not pulling his punches. Being hit doesn't make you fragile. Heck, even being broken doesn't make you fragile. Strong things break all the time. What makes something fragile is being easily broken. And trust me when I say that the death of one's spouse is not an easy blow.

Yes, I am a widow but don't call me fragile.