Amputation

I was recently in a social situation that brought me to my knees. I had introduced myself to a new couple I had never met before. We made small talk when suddenly the women gestured to the large space we were in and asked, "So, who are you connected to?"

What a loaded question. There was a bustling foyer full of people. I looked around and trembled as her question registered in my mind. My eyes wandered around a room full of couples and families. I was scanning each face and for a moment I was subconsciously searching for Riley. My heart started beating faster and faster as I knew I had to tell a complete stranger about my widowhood, about my singleness. "I don’t belong. I’m not connected to anyone here," I thought. The loneliness crept in, but I chose to answer confidently. "Well, I’m connected to myself!" The couple looked confused. I chimed in again and said, "I recently lost my husband this year in a car accident, so it's just me and my one-year-old daughter." Their faces instantly dropped, and tears swelled in their eyes. It hurt my heart that I just hurt theirs... that my story inflicted so much pain on strangers, that our light-hearted conversation turned grim. But what was I supposed to say? There is no way to sugarcoat tragedy. There is no way to sugarcoat my harsh reality.

Everywhere I go I am reminded of the space that Riley so gingerly used to take up. Holidays, birthdays, neighborhood and friend gatherings, parties, church, the list goes on and on. The silence and absence of Riley is deafening. The spaces where he should be now appear as gaping holes in my life. The empty passenger seat. The vacant church pew. The loneliness of an entire California king bed. The double sinks in the bathroom. The supper table. The missing headlights pulling in at 6:00 p.m. Painful reminders that a whole part of me took up residence in heaven. A whole piece of me is gone. His laugh, his energy, and his big personality would fill every room we entered together, and I got to enter into those spaces as Riley‘s wife. "Riley and Katlyn," and "Katlyn and Riley." Now I enter these spaces as just, "Katlyn." I enter these spaces as a single woman and widow. There are no words to encompass how much I truly hate that. How insanely painful that realization and feeling truly is. I haven’t been single in 11 years...and before that, I lived under my parent's roof, so I always belonged to someone. When someone asks who I belong to and I don’t have an answer it’s gut-wrenching.  

Where do I fit in? Where does a 30-year-old widow belong in a room full of families and couples anyway? What happens when I look around desperately and half of me is gone? I’ve often heard the analogy that losing a spouse is similar to losing a limb, like undergoing a violent amputation. This is true. Losing a spouse and losing a limb is similar in the ways that it is shocking, devastating, excruciating, life-changing, and extremely emotionally and physically traumatic. Almost 10 months later my body and my mind are still constantly adapting to how to survive without Riley. And when I say, survive, I mean, literally function on a day-to-day basis. When you’ve known someone and been with them that long, and suddenly they are gone, your body goes into overdrive. There are signals firing off always. Screaming that something is very wrong. Sounding off that something is missing. A frantic alarm screeching that something has indeed been severed and amputated. It's life-changing and has brutally interrupted the way I move and interact with the world.

People often comment about "how well I am doing" and "how confident I am" when I enter into spaces with friends and family. That’s because when I leave my home, I put on an emotional barrier, a prosthetic for my missing limb. And although this prosthetic may appear to be like a bulletproof shield, it is very, very fragile. It's simply fake. It's honestly not real. It is living in the space that something real used to. It protects me enough to survive in these social situations. But when I come home, and I take it off, and sit down in my grief, it all comes crumbling down. I reflect on how unbelievably hard it was to do that thing without Riley. How exhausting it was. How fake it was. People don’t see this part of my grief, because I don't let them. They see the perfectly poised and put-together Katlyn. What they absolutely do not see is the courage and pep talk I gave myself before attending a social function without a limb...without Riley...without an entire piece of me.

I will never be the same.

That is a fact.

That is simply the truth.

I am forever changed by losing Riley. However, trauma has an interesting way of strengthening the human heart and soul. It has a way of gifting perspective, resilience, empathy, and grit. Trauma has made me strong. Trauma has made me independent. Truthfully? Trauma has made me a better person. One day I will know what it feels like to be my whole self. One day I will know what it feels like to walk in a room full of people and confidently and sincerely be who God intended me to be as just "Katlyn." One day I won't have to hide my amputation, because it will be fully healed.

I am hopeful that day is coming soon, and I can't wait.