The single thing I feared prior to cancer and widowhood was mediocrity. I’ve always had an intense drive to stand out.
Why have one job when you can have three? Why not start a family during law school instead of waiting until school is over and you’ve passed the bar exam? Why stop at two children when you can have five?
Why be like everyone else when you can stand out?
I never thought that what would make me stand out would be the very thing that makes me the loneliest.
Widowed. Not many are.
Working professional woman.
Raising a larger-than-average family alone.
I stand alone as a widow. As a lawyer. As a teacher of higher education. As an only parent. As a mother of five.
Atop a mountain that is beautiful in it’s own right, yet a lonely existence.
Until I channeled my childhood gymnast and flipped it over and changed the way I look at the woman in the mirror.
Yes, I am widowed. I work, and I have my children. But those are the things that I am most proud of. I have weathered close to 7 years of cancer and death, I have the opportunity to be the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be — a lawyer — and I get the privilege of raising five little human beings to be compassionate, loving adults who fear nothing because they’ve seen everything.
I am lonely.
But in my aloneness lies an exceptional woman who stands uniquely me.💙
#laughterafterdeath #lookingintherearviewmirror
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