not doing the widow thing right

There should be a widow's handbook.  It says how long a widow is required to cry.  How many times a day she is allowed to think of her husband.  How often she can talk about him.  When it is okay to take his clothes out of the closet or clear his dresser drawers or throw away his toothbrush.  How she should refer to her husband.  When to tell people she is just meeting that she is a widow.  When she should start dating.  And much more, but since there is not, I am just doing what feels right to me.

I don't know how to grieve my husband.  I wasn't planning on doing it this early in life.  I'm just winging it.

I read that 7 years after a man has died his widow thinks of him 10 times an hour.  TEN times an HOUR!  After SEVEN YEARS!  That is how much the death affects the widow.  How much is changes her.  It is life altering, forever.

I called him "my late husband" for the first time today.  It felt so weird calling him "late" because he wasn't late for anything!  It feels weird sometimes calling him my husband though.  I mean he is my husband, but I'm not married anymore.

I have a husband, but I'm not married.  How weird is that?

I have been trying to talk myself into selling some of his tools and such in a couple of weeks.  We'll see if I get there or not.  I took some of his clothes out of the closet so I can have quilts made for the kids and for me.  His toothbrushes are still in the toothbrush holders though (he had one in each bathroom).  The things I feel ready to part with and those I don't are so random.

I also realized the other day, that if I had died, the only things in the house that are just mine are my clothes and my sewing machine.  He would have so much less to go through.  Everything else he would really need to keep.  Just my clothes and my sewing machine.  How crazy.

And crazy brings me to the grocery store.  I ran into the grocery store after leaving counseling the other day to just get a couple of things I needed before I picked the kids up at my parents'.  I am really out of the loop on dating or whatever though because I didn't even realize the guy was hitting on me for a while, even though he apparently used a well known pick-up.  We ended up standing in the aisle of the grocery store for about an hour talking though.  Right there between eggs and pasta sauce, for an hour!  It was flattering, yes, but crazy just the same.

And it brought up the concept of me dating.  Am I ready?  Will it happen?  I don't know.  I just want my family and friends to know that if and when I do date, I will be very cautious about who I bring around my children.  I will also be very cautious about who I let into my life.  My kids and I have been hurt horribly by the death of S and I want to protect them from any hurt I can.  And I will.  I think I have pretty fair judgement and really good instincts.  And I'm not a floosie.  I will also try to be honorable and respect S and his wishes.  I know what he would want for me and our kids and I want to honor him.

That is really what everything boils down to.  I want to honor my husband.  I want to live my life how he would want me to.  I want that because he loved me.  I know he would want me to be happy.  He always said that if I was happy, he was happy, and I want him to be happy. :)