Sometimes the First Year of Widowhood Truly Is the Hardest
The author and her husband Koichi in Bali
They coined him “The Eternal James Dean” that day.
My handsome, McSteamy husband had died suddenly, leaving us all in shock. Seeing his enlarged portrait in a black frame on an easel at the funeral as we typically do in Japan, it fell from one of his buddies’ lips: “It’s not fair — he’ll be forever remembered this way, at thirty-seven, while we all go on aging.”
I was the one who selected that photo — the meltiest smile from our recent getaway to Bali. His friend was right; Koichi would remain etched in our memories that way.
Returning home from the funeral, all I could think about was my face in the same black frame. My body was alive, but on the inside, I had died with him.
I flipped through albums — first in my mind, then on my iPhone — with the intention of selecting my own death portrait. In fact, I chose one. The meltiest smile of myself that I could find. Not the kind where I was posing for the camera, but my natural expression in all its no-make-up glamor as I gazed back at my beloved across a poolside breakfast table at our favorite island resort.
I resized the photo and sent it to my sister. “Please use this portrait when I die. I died at thirty-seven too.”
Although I didn’t go so far as printing the photo and framing it next to Koichi’s for fear of messing with the mental health of my two young children, the vivid visual remained in the inner sanctuary of my mind. I was gone. And there began my first year of acute grief.
Debilitated, incapacitated, and hardly existent, I was in horrendous astonishment to find that my respiratory faculties were no longer automatic. The exhalations seemed to extend to infinity but my body refused to inhale. It didn’t want to live anymore. Not unlike switching your automatic vehicle for a classic stick shift, I succumbed to the heavy task of manually counting each breath to keep myself alive.
Two months later, Koichi’s mother and father visited Tokyo to celebrate my thirty-eighth birthday. There’s nothing celebratory about any birthday, anniversary, or holiday for a long while after your loved one dies. In fact, they only make the absence stronger. It sincerely sucks. We ate out at a restaurant, shared tears, and even found momentary laughter in a silly iPhone app that distorted our faces.
Late in the night, however, my seven-month-old baby Ayden fussed around in terrible pain. There was vomiting and diarrhea, with what appeared to be blood spots in it. Fear consumed us.
After an agonizing day and a half of waiting, our local pediatrician recommended rushing Ayden to a hospital for tests and potential treatment of intussusception, a condition where a baby’s intestinal tract becomes blocked. I desperately sought a hospital that would allow me to stay with him, for I couldn’t stand the thought of parting with him in his fragile state.
I flipped through albums with the intention of selecting my own death portrait.
Then my in-laws broke some news to me. As much as they wanted to stay and support me, they couldn’t. Grandpa had passed away a few days earlier, and his funeral was scheduled for the next day. They hadn’t told me any sooner because they figured I had endured enough loss.
I left my older son with my father and hurried to the hospital. I felt so scared and alone. At the hospital, they ran all sorts of tests and Ayden had an IV drip and electronic cords all over his little body. Holding him through the pain, images of death haunted me. Every time I closed my eyes I would see my baby with a white glossy handkerchief over his face — just like I’d seen on my husband’s face on the cold steel table at the morgue. I repeatedly reminded myself, “It’s only a thought, it’s only a thought,” desperately swiping left to fight the relentless negativity of my mind.
When the test results confirmed Ayden’s intussusception, my knees gave in and I collapsed to the floor of our hospital room. The nurse was taken aback by my dramatic reaction. “Mother, this isn’t that bad. As we’ve explained, this is common among children under the age of two. We need you to sign these papers in case he needs an emergency operation, but there’s a 90% chance that the rectal procedure would suffice.”
But I was already broken. I could barely utter, “My husband died two months ago.”
“Oh…” She let out a resigned sigh and held me up by my shoulders just enough to scoot my body over the backless bench, where I could crumble again.
My cousin Hiroko brought me my pajamas and a toothbrush. She saw how dispirited and lifeless I was. I remember she sat next to me and gave me the lamest, slightest backrub, her palm barely managing a few strokes down the middle of my back. She didn’t know how to be near me.
I think all I wanted was a goddamn hug.
But this is not a hugging culture.
The week felt like a long and torturous decade in a deep, dark mental solitary.
A few months later, Koichi’s sister consulted a bogus medium who helped her project her negative energy onto me, blaming me for his death. I was so hurt, and my family was furious. But in the field of psychology, this shit is so common that they have a name for it. It’s called the transference of pain — when someone is in such pain that their psyche conjures up a scapegoat. My in-laws called, asking me to clear the misunderstanding and reconcile with her, but it was obvious I was in no position to convince her of her unfounded beliefs. The last thing they said to me was, “We’ve already lost our son. We can’t lose our daughter too.” Then they asked me to stay away.
We haven’t spoken since.
That was my first year of widowhood. I say that not for some pity party, but to tell you that for me, it couldn’t get much worse than that.
Not that the second year was much better — it just couldn’t get any worse than the first.
Editor’s note: Listen to our interview with Mae in Episode 143: Mae Yoshikawa on Choosing to Let Go of the Question “WHY?” and read more from her in Chapter 31 of “Widowed Parents Unite: 52 Tips to Get through the First Year, from One Widowed Parent to Another.”
