On March 9, 2010, the unthinkable happened, I found myself widowed at the age of 25 when the love of my life, my soul mate, was in a car accident while on his daily morning commute to work, just two months shy of our wedding day.
Early on in my journey, I knew part of God’s calling was for me to minister to other widows. At the time, I was 4 months into my journey and I had no idea what my ministry was going to look like. I had a plan in my head, but it was my plan. In the end, God’s plan is the one that prevails, so suffice to it say that I had no idea where this ministry would go, nor what it would evolve into.
God did prepare me prior to Greg’s accident, to minister to other women, by having me complete internships at several churches within women’s ministry. I felt my calling is in ministering to women so that I might encourage, educate, counsel and shepherd women in need. In addition, I continued to work on my master’s degree in counseling.
One thing that has helped me in my journey is being in community with other widows. I created a facebook screen name with my widowed name, as a few other widows have done. I did so in order to reach out to other widows and be encouraged by them as well. This road is so hard and so lonely.
People try to help, most have honorable intentions to help, but they just do not understand the ins and outs of being widowed; only those who have walked this path, truly understand everything that goes into being “widowed”. We are all a part of a club that no one wants to join, but you will not find more accepting, amazing, caring and compassionate people than those that are widowed. Hey, we all “get it”.
Another thing I did was start a blog about my journey as an Unwedded Widow to share with others our love, my loss and my faith in the hopes that others will see that they are not alone in their journey or in their grief. My posts are open, honest, raw and you can see the pain and loss in them.
I feel that that is the best way to tell others about the grief process and what I am experiencing. I didn’t ask to lose my beloved, nor to be widowed at 25; but I did choose how I was going to respond to my loss. I choose to embrace my grief and all the darkness and sadness that comes with losing your beloved, because I know my sweet Jesus is with me every step of the way. When I am sucked into the hole of darkness, consumed by grief, longing, missing and sadness; I know that Jesus carries me through this journey when I can no longer stand on my own two feet and gives me the strength when my bucket is empty and has a baseball size hole in the bottom. For me, embracing my grief instead of running away was one of the best decisions my Widow brain made.
As the second year began, more opportunities arose and I was given the opportunity to help others in different ways. I started writing for Open to Hope Foundation, which expands my audience to people experiencing various types of loss. I also help other widows on two different online support communities, as a contributing writer to Thewiddahood.com and as the Unwedded Widows group moderator of Widowed Village. I also recently started hosting a Live Chat for Unwedded Widows to gather and be together in a safe community filled with validation, love and support. It has been such an honor to provide a place and time for other Unwedded Widows to meet each other online.
Recently, I was asked to help establish a program for Unwedded Widows for Camp Widow, an event created by the Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, which is a weekend long event for widows and widowers to come together and share in community, through various activities, workshops, group events and a 5k run/ walk.
Time and time again, I have heard from widows that helping others helps the grieving process. It doesn’t make things easier, or make the pain less, nor does it shorten the length of time that it takes for a person to get to the other side of grief. It does, however, help both parties involved. Reaching out to other widows, establishing friendships, supporting and encouraging other widows, is one of the most helpful things in my first two years in this journey.
Since the loss of my beloved, I have a passion and heart for helping other widows. As an Unwedded Widow, my vision is to advocate for and bring awareness to Unwedded Widow/ers everywhere so that I might shed light on our unique journey in the widow/er community and to let other Unwedded Widow/ers know that they are not alone. I have a voice in the widowed community and I am using it to help other Unwedded Widows.
Brandi Reyna 2011
Thank you so much for sharing this..it caught my attention as the date posted is the 1 year sadiversary of when I lost my young hubby, also in a vehicle accident.
After the first 2 weeks of too much attention (total strangers were demanding to come in an have ‘coffee’ with me. (How does imposing your company on a new widow show compassion?), I never heard from anyone – not even my fellow church members. The pastor came a couple of times to pass on the following messages then never heard from him again either.
Can I just say that many Christians do not understand the idea of ’embracing’ grief. I had my pastor tell me things like “Are you over it yet? People are wondering.” (at 2 months out) or “You should grieve like a Christian.”(at 4 months). When I questioned this it was because I refused to hide my pain and ‘pretend’ to be happy again. He wasn’t impressed when I told him that Jesus showed great emotion at the death of Lazarus when He was resurrecting him in the next 5 minutes so I didn’t think Jesus had an issue with me being sad when it could be 40 years until I see my love again.
I’m thankful that I too have Jesus in my life because without Him I would have been totally alone. I am grateful for the online widow group I found it was shocking to find out how few people understood my situation or even cared. But I’m not sure I’ll ever return to that church.