What does it mean to be the One left behind?
It means you are the bearer of all things double. It means braving the world every morning as you walk out the door just so you appear like you have it all together. It means you question every ounce of parenting decision you make raising your children. It means looking like you didn’t just cry a river on your way to school drop offs knowing you had little sleep rocking your grieving child to bed the night before. It’s re-learning how to calm your nervous system after feeling somewhat unsafe everywhere you go because your safety net husband is no longer covering you. It’s keeping up with the multiple chat groups each child has for their extracurricular activities. It’s memorizing what the training schedule is for each child during the week whilst simultaneously wishing you could share the load with your spouse. It’s constantly reminding yourself that the ache you feel is the cost of how deeply you loved. It’s learning how to sleep again without taking sleeping pills. It’s sitting with your thoughts and emotions rather than trying to constantly fill the void by keeping busy. It’s learning how to feel safe within yourself again. It’s prioritising creating memories for your children whilst also learning how to take better care of yourself again. It’s being ok with saying no to events knowing your heart does not have the capacity for it in that season. It’s understanding what pain looks like on others purely because you know it so well. It’s losing yourself and finding yourself over and over again. It’s understanding that this life you now live takes guts, grit and constant resilience to keep showing up for yourself and your babies when sometimes you don’t want to be the strong one, you just want a moment to breathe. Being the one left behind is like living a double life of the past and present remembering what things were like whilst adjusting to a life that is brand new. It means sometimes the silence becomes your cry in isolation because you can’t always relate to people your age. It means your soul ages beyond your years not by choice but because life has demanded more of you that requires a maturity you never asked for. Oh, it’s also learning how to drive your husbands Ute, then once you’ve got the hang of it, learning not to drive over the footpath, then learning not to crash it lol oops already achieved all the above haha.
For a long while I believed being the one left behind was a burden. You’re left carrying this load that you can’t budge, that you can’t share with anyone other than your spouse. I believed being the one left behind was painful. So much so I would often wish not to be here. However, as time passes, I realize that to be the one left behind also means you are the one that gets to be, to see, and to hold your babies. You get to bear a weight, a love that surpasses the ends of this earth and transcends the physical realm. It means you get to tell your babies about the love they were created from (and be creative with it lol). You get to answer their constant questions about their dad, what he was like, his favourite colour and what he did for work. It means you get to be the one that takes them to school and hear about their day. It means you are the one that bears the responsibility of loving them, nurturing them and being their ultimate safe haven. The one they throw shade at when they’re not happy but also the one that catches them when they fall. You get to be the one they run to. You get to be the one to pick them up. The one that toilet trains them (even though I would 100% hand that one over to the dad if he was here).
Me. I get to do it. How blessed am I. To be the one left behind. How blessed am I, to carry the responsibility of learning how to expand my heart whilst being ok with letting it break and remold into something new. Although the most life altering season of my life I realise that to be the one left behind is the dream. It was the only dream my husband had on his death bed. To stay and watch his children grow. So, on the days the world feels heavy this is what I cling to. I cling to the moments he would cry knowing his time was near. I also cling onto the hope that in being the one left behind I am honoring him with the choices I make in raising our children with our village. I cling onto the hope that it is possible to still hold joy and sorrow in my heart and that by doing so others that are left behind also remain hopeful. I hope that by continuing to live out this season in my life it is a testimony that God can restore parts of your life beyond our imagination. That even in the moments I barely know what I am doing, He fully knows the plans for my life and has chosen me to be the one left behind.
And so the marathon continues.
29 & Widowed 