I spent the evening with my mom, who’s just over the 2 year mark on being a widow since my dad died in 2024. The first year for her was chaotic and her health took some major hits so she really didn’t get a chance to even process the whole thing properly. So this year has almost been like the first year for her.

And that’s something I’m sure other widowed people have experienced. We all know how much there is to do after a major death, so that takes up a huge amount of mental energy. Those where their spouse handled certain things are left to do those (or figure out how to do those) things themselves. Those who have children are of course focused on them. No matter your situation, you’re often putting your own grief on the back burner to handle life’s day to day stuff and hence delaying it in a way.

It’s sad, but most of these newly widowed to-do’s can’t wait. And no matter how much anyone may tell you, “take all the time you need” after the initial event, 2 short weeks may go by and people are tapping their virtual fingers waiting for you to “get over it” and get back to life and the to-do list.

Anyway, her experience is different than mine in various ways. I asked her what the main thing she struggles with now is and she said, “That he’s not here and that I feel like I have to rewire my brain”.

So we had a long chat about it. The “they’re not here” thing I think is something universal. I don’t care how long you’d been married to your person, the fact they’re suddenly not there and they never will be again, takes awhile to get used to (if you ever do get used to it). I’m over 5 years in on this journey and while I know he is not here in the physical form, it’s switched more to certain things triggering a thought like, “Oh Mario would have loved this (if he were still here)” but doesn’t have the same gut punch it did for the first couple years for me.

But I thought the “rewire my brain” phrase was an interesting one to explore.

My mom talked about how every time she “sleeps in” in the morning, her first waking thought will always be something like, “Oh John will totally say something about me sleeping late” (he was an early bird until near the end).

I’ve talked with others in a local widowed persons group who cite very similar examples, especially when they were with their spouse for many decades. Even a simple task of making a cup of coffee or tea in the morning has to be re-thought when you were previously making 2 cups for many years.

I had a nice phone chat with one of the local widows a few days ago and we were talking about traveling (she has an RV and I have my tiny trailer). At one point, she said she has kind of a fear of dealing with setting up the RV once arriving at a park because her husband was previously in charge of stuff like that.

If you’re reading this and are a widowed person, you’re probably thinking of your own everyday life things that are now requiring you to rewire your brain a bit and either start thinking about in a different way or challenging yourself to create new “wires” (and learn new things).

I feel a bit lucky in a way in that I’ve always been very independent and able to tackle many things, but every now and then I will literally say out loud, “Mario, I could use a little help with this”. Sometimes I ask my dad too. The uncanny thing, is it seems to work. I’ve tried to write it off as coincidence, but it’s happened enough that I’m just not going to keep questioning it any more and just roll with it.

So I told my mom, next time she’s struggling with something, ask my dad for help and pay attention if anything changes or is different. It could act as a nice bridge to connect how things were with how things are now, while not feeling totally alone.

You’re not crazy. Call it a coping mechanism while you transition into your new life and wire your brain without your person being physically there.