When We Were Widows

by Annette Chavez Macias

Certain events in your life become a core memory even as they’re happening in real time. The day I got the call about my dad dying was definitely one of them.

Sometimes it seems like there’s this belief that if we don’t talk about our grief in public, then we must be doing okay. And eventually that’s exactly what we want others to think, so we start to censor ourselves and not express every emotion.”

I looked down at the small crowd of women laughing and talking as if they didn’t have a worry in the world. I realized I could never be one of them—not really. I always had a worry. I could never let my mind rest and just enjoy the moment. Even as a little girl, I always felt like I had to worry about everyone else. Because if I didn’t, bad things would happen. Things like my father getting shot.

Grief, I’d learned, didn’t have a finish line. It was an endless journey. Some days the path was easy, and other days you’d be running perfectly fine and then, out of nowhere, you’d stumble, and the pain would come roaring back as if your loss had just happened.