The Ugliest Word in the English Language

WIDOW

I remember the first time that someone referred to me as a “widow.” It was a great shock to me, as it was the day before my husband died.  A well-intended hospice nurse told me that my new “job” as a soon-to-be “grieving widow” was to let others take charge and just to sit back off the front lines.  That directive didn’t set well with me as I am used to taking charge.  But what really hit me hardest – and what stuck with me the longest – was my perceived insult of being labeled a “widow.” I was a married woman.  How could I now just lose my status? 

            I hated that word – “widow.”  It connoted long, shapeless, bland, black clothes and scarves.  I could almost see myself in a photograph of my great-great-great grandmother in mourning, standing solemnly in a Charleston cemetery draped out in yards of black lace with such tension in her set jaw that any attempt at a smile could make her face shatter.  I conjured a joyless existence punctuated by a recurring fear of being taken advantage of without a man-protector.  I imagined tables for one in the darkest corner of a restaurant, paying double fare to cruise, sitting on the “widows’ pew” at church, and being shrouded with second-class status.  For months I resisted the use of that word.  For months, I eschewed it and repelled it and was offended by it and anybody that used it.  

            So, I launched a personal campaign to change that word!! I brainstormed.  I searched lexicons.  I asked others.  I tried to find a better word that did not lump us all together in the same category as the pitied, abandoned, or orphaned.  I needed to find a word that called out strongly, “We may be down, but we aren’t out.”  Nothing fit. Nothing felt settled.  No word enhanced my status and at the same time accurately described it.

             Months went by.  Two years had expired, and the word still haunted me.  I forced myself to continue writing about being a widow, and although my emotional gut wrench was waning to some degree, each time I typed that word, I continued to be annoyed by it.

            One day I began to jot down my thoughts on a legal pad.  I started writing about the stigma created by one of the least liked words in the dictionary.  Across the top of the yellow, lined page in big, bold, capital letters, I printed out:

W – I – D – O – W 

            Then, it hit me.  At the very center of one of the ugliest words that had ever been used to describe me and so many others was hidden a phrase that all of us who have ever lost a husband have uttered in joy, hope, and love on one of the happiest days of our lives.

I   DO 

            From “I-do” to “widow” we have all traveled.  Were it not for saying “I-do,” we would not find ourselves as widows.

            To me, the word “widow” is no longer a description of loss, but of love.  I now embrace my status as a widow, and when I am called by that name, I take it as quite a compliment and a beautiful reminder of the vows that we took and of our commitment, compassion, and trust.  

            I hope that you will, too.