In the world of widows and widowers, a chapter 2 is love that comes after the loss of your spouse. It is a term that is used constantly, and it has always rubbed me the wrong way.
I get why people call it that, I guess, but it just really bothers me. That would mean that Nathan was my chapter 1, and to reduce our life and love to merely a chapter feels like a betrayal to what was actually a great novel in my life. I’ve had more than one novel during my time on earth,, not just the amazing romance that came to be with Nathan…novels of great sadness and violence and tragedy, but novels of my life nonetheless. I had the greatest love story I could ever have imagined with my husband, despite it ending in tragedy. I now have a new love in my life and have been engaged for almost a year. Love that began the next novel of my life. With all that said, despite disliking the term for my own personal reasons, I do LOVE to see other widows and widowers falling in love. Love that often brings criticism and judgement from people who can’t possibly judge us because they have no idea what our lives are like. We get people who tell us that we need to move on, no matter how long it’s been since the death of our spouse (it started with me around 2 weeks after losing my husband, when people started getting tired of me posting about my grief). We have people who can’t believe that we would have the nerve to even try to find love again. I was 3 years out when I started dating my fiancé, and I still dealt with this crap.
The reality is that no longer how short of a time or how long of a time it’s been since we lost them, being able to find love again should be a joyous thing for other people to see, not just a part of our lives that they pass judgement on. We do not move on from this, but we do move forward. If we feel that we can open up our hearts to love again, you can open your hearts and be happy for us. After all we’ve been through, we deserve a little happiness.
The opinionated widow 