logo
I Was Unexpectedly Widowed At 36. I Expected To Grieve, But I Never Expected This.

I Was Unexpectedly Widowed At 36. I Expected To Grieve, But I Never Expected This.

Yahoo07-07-2025
During the pandemic, my husband Brent bought a used Jon boat to escape the confinement of lockdowns — to find a sense of peace in nature.
On July 10, 2020, two hours after he took it out for a test drive, the police showed up at my door. Brent was missing. Two days later, EquuSearch found his body. He had drowned. He left behind two young sons, ages 11 and 3.
I was 36 — and suddenly, a widow.
In the days after his death, I moved through the world in a daze. The grief was crushing, but it wasn't just that. I began to feel lost and unmoored in a way that surprised and frustrated me. I expected the sorrow. What I didn't expect was the disorientation, the sense that I no longer recognized the world, or myself in it.
After all, I had strong friendships, a deeply fulfilling role as a newly appointed assistant professor of social work at the University of Houston-Downtown, and a clear sense of purpose as a researcher. I couldn't understand it — how I could be so surrounded, so rooted in meaning, and still feel like I was disappearing.
Later, as I pivoted my research to study young widowhood more deeply, I started to hear the same thing from others: 'I'm lost. I don't know who I am anymore.'
From research participants and grief scholars, I've come to understand this as the loss of self-familiarity. We aren't sealed-off individuals, we're co-created through our relationships. So when someone central to you dies, it's not just grief. It's the slow, disorienting unraveling of who you were in their presence.
I felt that unraveling most clearly in the smallest moments, like the first time I sat down for dinner without him.
Brent used to set a drink beside me every night at dinner. I never had to ask. It was just there — part of the rhythm we had created. Three days after he died, my family urged me to eat. I hadn't touched food in days. I was too terrified, too grief-stricken. I sat down in my usual spot at our breakfast table. My body moved the way it always did: I reached out for the drink that should be there.
But there was no drink.
Instantly, I realized no one would be thinking of me in that quiet, everyday way anymore. I felt less important. Unseen.
That small act — him pouring me a drink — had been a reflection of care, of attention, of mattering. I hadn't even known how much it meant until it was gone. The missing glass of water became the clearest symbol of what I had lost — not just Brent, but the quiet feeling of being cherished.
That's when I understood something I hadn't fully realized before: So much of my self-worth had been quietly held in his ordinary acts of care.
In that moment, everything I thought I knew about who I was began to unravel. I didn't have the language for it then. I just knew something inside me had shifted. I became unrecognizable to myself.
Some books give language to grief's sorrow. Fewer speak to the quiet horror of becoming unfamiliar to yourself.
Strangely, I began to recognize pieces of this experience not in grief literature, but in psychological horror films. In one movie, 'The Substance' (2024), a discarded fitness icon takes a black-market serum that splits her into two bodies: her younger self and her deteriorating original form. The younger version starts stealing time, accelerating the original woman's decay.
One morning, she wakes to find just one finger aged beyond recognition. Over a short period of time, she watches in helpless terror as her body becomes something monstrous.
That jolt of horror — of watching yourself change and not being able to stop it — felt eerily familiar.
Because what grief did to me and to other mourners wasn't just emotional. It was embodied. It was cognitive. It was identity-shattering.
My body felt different too. My chest felt tight, like an elephant was sitting on it. My joints ached. I was exhausted all the time.
I had always loved movement. But after Brent died, it became something else entirely. Certain songs in workout classes would bring me to tears. Physical effort unearthed buried emotion. I'd cry while stretching. During the pandemic, I was grateful for the masks because they gave me privacy to fall apart without having to explain.
It wasn't that I couldn't move my body, it was that I couldn't bear what movement was unearthing. My body had become a mirror of what I was trying so hard to survive.
I started forgetting things. Losing things. The worst was my keys. I lost them constantly. I'd be late, panicked, digging through bags, retracing my steps. Eventually, I had to get my truck rekeyed.
After that, my twin sister Brenda showed up with a pack of Bluetooth trackers. She handed them to me like a care package. 'For the hard days,' she said.
She wasn't just talking about the keys. She was acknowledging how grief had hijacked my mind. How I couldn't hold onto anything — not objects, not time, not even a coherent sense of myself.
People call it 'grief brain.' And it's real. Your brain is doing invisible labor, trying to reconcile reality, review memories, scan for threat. That takes energy. What's left for daily tasks is minimal.
When you begin to lose yourself, you realize you are made of multiple parts. Some are intact — even strengthened — and others are still collapsing. People would see me at work and assume I was fine. My research on young widowhood even began to thrive. I focused intensely. I was productive. In my annual review, I received a comment that my research 'exceeded expectations.'
Meanwhile, I was writing things like this in private:
'I dread nights, fearful of the nightmares. I dread the mornings, with their terrible reminder of reality. I dread the days, knowing the desperate yearning for Brent always gives way to horror at how he died.'
I was in survival mode — just trying to stay alive.
Both were true. At the very same time.
Grief doesn't always look like tears. Sometimes it looks like achievement. Like showing up, smiling, getting it done — while falling apart in private.
I became a question mark to myself — unanswered, undefined. There was no map. Just blank space where the familiar used to be.
And the hardest part? Most people don't see it. You seem 'fine.' You're functioning. So they assume the worst is over.
And here is what becoming unfamiliar with yourself does: It makes it incredibly hard to rebuild and heal. People ask you what you need and you have no clue. You don't like what you used to. What used to bring you joy no longer does. And so, you lose trust in yourself. You become alienated from yourself and from others.
If you've felt this — if you're feeling it now — I want you to know: You're not crazy.
Writing this is my way of saying that you are not alone. It is possible to rebuild, but let's not pretend this is simple. It is complex, layered, and you have to start from scratch in places you thought were solid.
Five years later, I'm still finding my way through it. I've begun to catch glimpses of myself again — laughing with my son, feeling grounded in my work, sitting at a table with friends and feeling almost normal. I've also discovered brand new things. I like to dance now. I've fallen in love again. I even earned tenure.
It's not a clean return. It's slow. Layered. And still, somehow, holy.
I didn't just lose Brent. I lost the version of myself that existed with him. And I've had to grieve her, too — while slowly, unevenly, becoming someone new.
Dr. Liza Barros-Lane is a social work professor, researcher and founder of The Young Widowhood Project. Widowed at 36, she combines personal experience with research to better understand what it means to lose a partner too soon. Find her on Instagram and Facebook at @the_widowed_researcher.
Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

At 102, D-Day veteran looks forward to a long-delayed bar mitzvah
At 102, D-Day veteran looks forward to a long-delayed bar mitzvah

Washington Post

time34 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

At 102, D-Day veteran looks forward to a long-delayed bar mitzvah

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Harold Terens fought in World War II. He's lived almost 102 years, celebrating his birthday a couple weeks early with family and friends in Florida. But he has something more to look forward to. His bar mitzvah. Terens said at his birthday celebration Saturday that his brother got the traditional Jewish ceremony marking the beginning of adulthood when they were kids living in New York, but he did not.

Teen Begs to Move Away with Dad to Avoid Mom's New Husband, but She Says He Is Abandoning Their Family
Teen Begs to Move Away with Dad to Avoid Mom's New Husband, but She Says He Is Abandoning Their Family

Yahoo

time41 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Teen Begs to Move Away with Dad to Avoid Mom's New Husband, but She Says He Is Abandoning Their Family

Caught between loyalty and resentment, a teen opens up about why he chose to leave his mom's home and the painful fallout that followed A teen turns to the Reddit community for advice following a difficult decision that left emotions running high in his family. In a candid post, the 16-year-old boy asks if he's wrong for moving to another state with his dad and older sister, while limiting contact with his mom and her new family. 'My parents have been divorced most of my life,' the teen shares, noting that he and his 19-year-old sister have barely any memories of their parents being together. The siblings have been splitting time between their mom's and dad's houses ever since the divorce. Everything changed when the teen's mom started dating her now-husband, who has three children of his own, when the poster was around 10 years old. 'Me and my sister didn't like him,' the teen admits, explaining that although they had gotten along with other men their mom dated, this man 'always rubbed both of us the wrong way.' 'He's a pretty big a-- when he's talking to people,' the teen writes bluntly. He says his mom excused her husband's behavior by blaming it on his military background, but the teen doesn't buy it. 'I don't think everyone in the military talks to others like they're giving orders 24/7,' he explains. According to the teen, it isn't just he and his sister who feel this way, as his mom's family and neighbors also avoid her husband. He even recalls hearing that the man once lost a job because of how he treats others. Despite the growing tension, his mom still chose to marry him, leaving the siblings feeling trapped. 'We tried to spend more time at dad's but mom would never allow it,' the teen remembers. He explains that the courts also didn't support it, making it difficult for them to avoid their mom's house. When his sister was around 17 years old, a judge decided to let her spend less time at their mom's house. But for the poster, he had no choice but to continue visiting. During these visits, his mom would repeatedly pressure him to bond with her husband. 'She said he did so much and I could at least try to love him because he wasn't as bad as me and my sister felt he was,' the teen writes. He didn't hold back in sharing his true feelings, telling his mom, 'I'd never see why she loved him and that I just didn't get it.' He admits he'd rather be at school every single day than spend even an hour with her husband. His mom also urged him to connect with his younger stepsiblings. But the teen has no desire to get to know them, explaining that they were simply 'her husband's kids' to him. Still, he says he wasn't rude to the stepsiblings and kept things polite. But he's clear about where he stands. 'I never tried to act like their brother or gave them false hope of a forever relationship," he writes. So, when his dad received a job offer in another state, the teen didn't hesitate to push for the move. 'I begged him to take it and try to take me with him,' he shares, adding that his sister was also eager to go since she planned to start college nearby. Though their mom initially refused to allow it, they took the matter to court. The teen recalls the moment clearly, writing, 'I told them I wanted to go with dad and my sister and I'd give anything to move with them.' His mom was heartbroken when she found out, and the teen remembers her crying as she asked why he wanted to leave so badly. When the judge ruled in his favor, his mom used her remaining visits to try and change his mind. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 'She asked me how I could leave her and my stepsiblings,' the teen says, sharing how she tried to guilt him by mentioning her stepkids' difficult past. 'She put it on me that they had lost so much already,' he adds, noting that their mother had lost custody of them years earlier. But the teen stood firm, telling his mom that he "didn't want to stay there" or "deal with her decisions anymore.' He says she shouldn't have been surprised that he didn't want to be part of the family she chose to build. Now, after the move, his mom calls almost daily, and she has his stepsiblings reaching out too. However, he admits to ignoring most of their calls and plans to go "full no contact once I'm 18.' Though the court order currently requires them to stay in touch once a week, the teen has made it clear where he stands. His mom recently found out about his plans and called him 'a jerk," telling him they're 'a family whether I like it or not.' Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword

Victim dies after falling 150 feet from rock formation in Colorado
Victim dies after falling 150 feet from rock formation in Colorado

Yahoo

time41 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Victim dies after falling 150 feet from rock formation in Colorado

An adult died after falling 150 feet off a steep rock face in Colorado, officials said. Emergency crews responded to a 'tragic incident' near Eagle Gate and Pine Valley Road Thursday morning, the Elk Creek Fire Department announced. An adult, whose identity has not been publicly identified, died after a fall of approximately 150 feet from a rock formation southwest of Conifer, 'with a significant portion of the fall being a free fall,' the fire department said. It's not immediately clear what the person was doing in the area or what caused the fall. Bethany Urban, the fire department's spokesperson, told the Denver Post that authorities are working to determine whether the person was climbing on public or private property. 'It was a recovery, unfortunately, not a rescue,' Urban said. The rescue crews conducted a 'difficult high-angle rope recovery operation' with the support of various nearby authorities, including Conifer Fire, Alpine Rescue Team, and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Photos published by Elk Creek Fire Department captured dozens of helmet-wearing rescue workers holding a long rope during the rescue operation. 'Our hearts are with the victim's loved ones during this incredibly painful time,' Elk Creek Fire said. The harrowing incident comes days after someone else fell hundreds of feet in the state. On Wednesday, the Alpine Rescue Team rescued a person who fell 200 feet in 'steep snow' at Saint Mary's Glacier, the department said. The victim suffered 'significant injuries' and was life-flighted. The crew was able to stabilize the patient.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store