Dr. Widow

Let me be perfectly clear when I make the following statement: being a widow sucks! Any way you dissect the components of widowhood, it all ends up a hot mess of refuse and hurt. It can come at you sideways and unexpectedly; it can be preordained yet still powerfully painful; it can even occur when grieving the loss of an ex-spouse. In my case, I kissed my husband goodbye for work one fine Friday morning, and that was the last I saw him. His car accident shattered my understanding of the universe and made time stand still. The man I had loved for more than half of my life, and whom I had vowed to spend eternity with, was gone. How could I survive when he did not? How could I carry on when he could not? What was I going to do with my life now? All these questions and approximately a million more were circling my mind’s eye like vultures before the feast. My sanity, my happiness, I daresay my will to live was challenged on the day of December 16, 2016. But like many widows/ widowers, life has a way of forcing us to carry on. I became a widow at age thirty, which meant I also became a single mother (something I also did not plan ever to be). On December 17, 2016, I found myself thirty, single, raising an eighteen-month-old and a three-year-old—both of whom who were grieving the loss of Daddy and wondering why he wouldn’t be there for Christmas. I can honestly say that my two children have been and will forever remain my guardian angels. My will to love and nurture them almost immediately overpowered my need to curl up and die in a dark corner. Without them, my journey, and this book, would be very different indeed. Oh, and did I mention I was a doctoral student at the time? I had been attending school for two years when the accident occurred. I was at a stage in my academic program where slowing down momentum would have prevented me from graduating altogether. I had begun the doctoral journey both to advance myself professionally and to appease the part of my brain that has always wanted to be a doctor, but was that enough to survive the road ahead? When the weight of the world fell squarely on my shoulders, and only my shoulders now, how could I be both mother and student, widow and scholar? I did not have an answer to these questions as I began to tread the uncharted waters of my new social status: #widow. I remember collapsing into my sister’s arms and telling her, “I don’t know how to do this.” Rewind time a bit, and you will have seen me outwit, outthink, and outsmart any test in my childhood. There was no subject too hard, and no assignment too difficult. But this wasn’t an academic issue; this was an issue most adults don’t endure until retirement. And here I was, unprepared for the test before me. For all of the questions I did not have an answer for, there were two questions whose answers seemed clear: “Do I need to heal from this hurt?” and “Do I need to finish my degree?” I knew in my soul that the answer to these questions was a resounding yes. The real issue, as with most things in life, is how could I heal and how could I finish my degree? Therein lies the need for this book. There is a great deal of support groups, books, social media groups, and organizations aimed at helping widows. However, the media and literature seem to be sparse on what to do when you find yourself both widowed and pursuing a PhD level degree. Since I experienced both simultaneously, it is difficult for me to disseminate the heartache and challenges that each journey can impose individually. I found myself seeking resources for widows that did not address the stress of homework assignments and seeking support from doctoral resources who did not understand trying to clear one’s mind while grieving. Frankly, I think that if you find yourself in the position I was in, burying your head in the sand for an undetermined amount of time is a wholly acceptable and valid method to cope. But realistically, isolation is not healthy, atrophy of the mind is damaging, and relentless sojourning for answers is the plight of anyone who desires to pursue a terminal degree. I suppose you could say that I wrote this book to help fellow Dr. Widows (or aspiring Dr. Widows) survive the dual journey they are on by sharing the lessons I have learned along the way. While this book addresses the rather unique identity of Dr. Widow, I’d like to think that the lessons learned about grit and perseverance are relevant to anybody who has experienced loss or who is studying at the collegiate level. Sometimes, the best life lessons can come from places we did not expect, so I encourage anyone reading this book, regardless of their state of being, to be receptive to the lessons it provides. I thought once that writing a book and baring my soul on the page would be difficult, embarrassing, and foreign. But even as I write this introduction, I feel a sense of calm knowing that I am sharing all of me for the benefit of others. Anyone who has been hurt, or is hurting, should know that I am a comrade-in-arms; anybody who has spent sleepless nights studying or questioned their abilities understand that I have felt that inner torment as well (because the doctoral journey is a gauntlet in its own right).