An Incomplete List of Things You Lose When You Become a Widow

What do you lose when you become a widow? Well, a husband, of course, and a father if you have kids. But it goes much deeper than that. There are a whole slew of emotional (and practical) things you miss out on once the person you love most passes from this world to the next.

This is certainly an incomplete list, but when your spouse dies, you lose:

A hand to hold
A shoulder to cry on
Someone to tell you you’re beautiful when you feel anything but
A first mate on the days when you want to captain the ship
A captain on the days when you don’t want to be in charge
Someone to confide all your hopes, dreams and insecurities
A second income
A second opinion
Someone who is strong where you are weak
A receiver of random text messages, news articles and internet memes
A partner-in-crime for inside jokes and outside adventures
Someone to share the sunset with
A chauffeur
A cook
Someone to make you not feel alone
A man in the house to teach your boys to shave and other such things
A person to nudge when things go bump in the night
Someone who cares more for you than himself
A friend
A sympathetic ear
Someone who remembers you on birthdays and holidays
A role model for your girls
A smile when you walk in the room
Someone to stand with when the world seems against you

A mechanic
A tinker
Someone to put together the things you’ve taken apart
A person to say “don’t worry about it” and “let me handle that”
A person to bring medicine and soup when you’re sick
Someone who is willing to make your problems his problems
A handyman
A love
A lifetime of dreams

What would you add to this list?

2 Comments

    1. JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C.S. Lewis were fast friends.
      When CW died, CSLewis insightfully wrote that not only did he lose CW, he lost the effect CW had on JRRT and CSL.; and JRRT lost the effect CW had on CSL and JRRT
      Ripple effects!

      1. I didn’t know that. What an interesting (and accurate!) insight. One person affects so many.

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