I remember my first Camp Widow like it was yesterday. It was around 8 months after Erik had passed. I was sitting on the same couch that I couldn’t seem to move from and had this overwhelming feeling that I was all alone. There wasn’t anyone in my circle that was a widow and at the time I definitely couldn’t imagine anyone around my age that was a widow. It was such an overwhelmingly lonely feeling. It felt as if I was the sole person standing in a space where all I could see was just white emptiness all around me for miles and miles. And even though I was lucky enough to have had so many people around me trying to support me after Erik’s passing, I still felt so alone, even in a room full of people, even with my twins, every single time. And that’s when I thought to myself there was no way I was the only one on earth going through this. I so desperately wanted to find even just one other person who could relate to what I was going through. ‘Resources for widows’ went into my Google search bar. Well, really I first typed out ‘what to do when your husband dies at a young age’, and as those words settled in I found myself backspacing on my keyboard. And there it was among some other links – Camp Widow. Just like that, I couldn’t believe there were other people who might have been able to relate to this deep indescribable pain I was feeling. So I took the leap and signed up for that next upcoming camp without truly knowing what I was in for, just knowing I needed someone to see me. I needed someone to hear me. I needed someone to understand me, but that understanding that one can only have having been through it. And that’s what led me to find my squad. My widow squad.

I recently just attended my third Camp Widow. My second in San Diego. This camp was bittersweet as it was the last in San Diego for the weekend format. I went into it already feeling a sense of sadness knowing the future ones would be different. It was also hard leaving the twins this time and it was hard on them because it had been a while since I’d taken a weekend trip without them. As they get older and more aware each year my anxiety to leave them grows. But I knew this was a time for me to focus on my journey in healing. So as much as it hurt me to see the sadness in their eyes during our FaceTimes, I had to remind myself that I needed to take care of myself to be able to take care of them. And that doesn’t happen much in our daily lives because I still feel knee-deep in survival mode a majority of my days. So I took Camp Widow in and I focused on listening to what my heart and body needed. And what it needed was what I needed that very first search for this camp. To not feel alone. To reconnect with the people who understood. And this last Camp Widow San Diego did just that. It allowed me to see the group of people that I had gotten so close with. To see in person, this group that I had been conversing with all year since the last Camp Widow. To get to hug this group who had been behind a screen for most of this year. To miss those that couldn’t make it. To meet those new ones who are now part of this club that none of us want to be in, but knowing that even if you feel alone, you are never alone. Not with this group. So as bittersweet as the last camp weekend began, it was bittersweet as it ended with our goodbyes not being goodbyes at all, but until next time.