Room for Love Again

The man who loves a widow well doesn’t get enough credit, mostly because we don’t generally talk about what that even looks like. God brought that person into my life when I wasn’t looking for him.

My husband David knows I write. A grief blog, a memoir about my loss, a book of humor essays, a life story project my daughter roped me into through StoryWorth. He’s also a surprisingly objective editor. When I’m buried in my laptop on the sofa, he’ll glance over and ask, “Are you grieving today?” He says it the way he says most things, with a little humor in his voice. Just a question.

Loving a widow means accepting that she's going to carry her dead person with her, probably forever. A man who understands that doesn't try to fill a space or compete with a memory; he builds something new without asking her to take anything apart.

I also learned that loving someone new is its own real thing. I love David in ways particular to who he is and what we’ve built together. Widows considering remarriage sometimes brace for a betrayal they expect to feel toward the person they lost, as if loving someone new means loving the one who died less.

The capacity to love does not run out because it was used before.

What David does right, at the core of it, is that he married the whole version of me. The one with history, with grief, with a story that started long before he entered it. He didn’t ask me to edit that down or tuck it into storage. He asked questions and listened.

Some widows have no interest in remarrying, and that's a complete answer. This is for the ones still turning the question over.

If you’re somewhere in the middle of wondering whether there’s room for someone new in your life, I won’t tell you it’s simple. Loving after loss comes with a different kind of awareness. You know now how fast everything can change and what it costs when it does. That knowledge can make love feel riskier, but it can also make it deeper and steadier.

The right person will not be threatened by your past. The right person will honor it, then build a future with you anyway.

With Grace for the Mess,

~Stef