Upon becoming widowed, I couldn’t tell if I was still married or single. My married friends and family members would speak of my wife, almost as if she was just not in the room with us. But obviously I was physically alone now. And my experiences did not match the stories from divorced people I knew.

I initially felt marginalized. But I found this margin existed between my past life and that “future” where I’m not missing the past.

I was lonesome in my empty house, but at times I enjoyed the sheer independence.
My marriage was far from perfect, but we loved each other from start to finish. However, there where things I never wanted to endure again from another person. I was happy to be freed from those, and yet reminded.

I was a widower, after being married for 23 years. Was I old now? Or was I still young? When I put my wife’s ashes to rest at the cemetery, I checked to make sure I could move them to another state if I were to move far away.

And my job. I needed to remain employed, but the contemporary priorities of a company did not match the visceral priorities of my life. We have a deadline at work to meet? Oh you think that’s a deadline do you? Let me tell you about my wife’s deadline! And you know what else – we all have that deadline coming.

I call it living in between. It was a new state of being for me, one with which I struggled. At times angrily. At times thoughtfully. And even sometimes joyfully. That margin in between evolved, as did how I dealt with it.

I’ll share my struggles and triumphs in this in-between place. And share with you how we can grow new roots here, to help us once again bloom and grow.