The Widowhood │ On the Eve of My 40th Birthday Weekend

I remember the days leading up to my 30th birthday. I had just gotten home from Chicago, having attained topic approval for my dissertation for my PhD. I was living with Phil at the shore and for the most part, life was pretty together, but I was totally freaked out about that milestone birthday. I was worried that Phil and I would just live in sin for forever and that I would never get to be a mom. I felt like I was reaching the accomplishments I wanted professionally but felt like I was going to miss everything I wanted in my personal life and that age was slowly creeping in. I think that is the big difference between men and women, men think their time is infinite while women are all too aware of the seasons that we age in.

If I could go back to ten years ago, I think I would hug that version of myself. I would let her know how absolutely hard and devastating marrying Phil would be. How she hadn’t known it yet, but that she had already begun and would continue to lose herself in Phil’s world and toxic family. And how those patterns would just repeat on and on until you would finally move away and ultimately to the day of his funeral where your mother would look at you after all the insanity was over and say, “You’re no longer married to him. This is now your life to decide.” She was right. It is my life and they are my children to raise. I don’t regret my life with Phil because at the time it was who I loved and wanted and if I had chosen any differently, I would not have the three amazing kids that I do have.

I got to be a mom and I was given the gift of starting over and giving my children a childhood that breaks free of the generational trauma and toxic family dynamics that killed their father. Looking back on the past decade of my life, I see how hard it was. I see how hard I worked for my family and for everything that I have. I also see how much it all burnt me out and how I lost myself in the early to middle part of my 30’s, only to have life hand me the biggest curve ball and find the strength and mental fortitude needed to move forward and start over again.

There’s something to your 30’s being the decade that you learn the most about yourself. About what you want, what you will deal with and finding that inner glow up that brings with it a new level of confidence after surviving some of the scariest moments of your life from giving birth to trying to save your dying husband. To the even scarier stuff, meeting someone new and having those kinds of feelings for them that makes you want to let them into your world. And as you approach 40, you begin to realize that because of your special person that you are awakening your interests and parts of you that you lost being married to someone who didn’t appreciate you or really respect you by the end of it.

To my 20-something self, I would say…calm down girlfriend it’s all going to work out the way it’s supposed to.

To my 30-something self, I would hug and say, you deserved more than you got, but I am proud of you for staying true to who you are despite spending much of your time here in the epicenter of crazy and then in the middle of someone’s deteriorating mental health. You didn’t come out unscathed, but you absolutely came out stronger because of it.

To my soon to be 40-year-old self…man it’s scary to be middle aged isn’t it? Don’t focus so much on the ending of your life. It may even be another 60 years before that happens. Instead, enjoy all of the things you worked so hard for. Enjoy being with the true love of your life and doing all the things you both are passionate about, gardening and nature adventures and traveling. Stay true to your own passions of reading too much and painting abstract vaginas. Hold onto hope that you and your love will get to have your own children and that eventually your teaching career will fade into the writing career that you always wanted…perhaps with a little college lecturing on the side. Just because you’re middle aged doesn’t mean it’s over, it just means a new life has begun and there is still time to do all of the things as long as you make them a priority. Your life deviated greatly from where you thought it was going, but in so many ways it has become better than you ever thought it could be.

Be proud of how well your children are doing and how much work it took both you and your love to undo the years of having been at home with a disengaged father. Be proud of losing 115 pounds from the morbid obesity that three back to back pregnancies and a chaotic over-worked lifestyle brought you. You’re just 20 pounds away from being at your goal weight and you’re still under the two year mark from when you started your journey–that is just amazing. Most importantly, don’t be so afraid or anxiety ridden of the future…especially trout streams.

Here’s to turning 40 and the chapter of life that is yet to come.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment

The Widowhood │ Manhattan

John and I aren’t in the part of our relationship where he knows about my life in my early 20’s. He doesn’t know about my love for the city or the life I was set to have there at that point in my life. Back then, I was a senior at Rutgers University and I was graduating with a dual degree in art history and journalism and media studies. I had been accepted into some of the best programs for art business and curating, including a new program being offered through Sotheby’s. And that spring I fell head over heels in love with a boy that was several years older than me and we had a very intense relationship that ended in him one day telling me that his love for me had stopped growing and so I broke up with him. For years, he would talk to our former mutual friends about me and I would avoid relationships all together because of that hurt that Landon had left me with. 

        This was in 2008 and at a time where the economy tanked overnight. Within days I had a choice: was I going to fight for the loan that I had to go to my dream masters program or was this the universe telling me to pursue graduate school elsewhere and be closer to the boyfriend that I thought was it for me. I chose to begin to look at graduate school closer to him. And within a couple of months, the relationship was totally over. I often look back at that time in my life as a crossroads where I could have had a life of Manhattan, but instead my life brought me to teaching and in turn to Phil and to my children and South Jersey. I do not regret that crossroads because my children are the loves of my life, but I sometimes do wonder if I had chosen differently, what my life would have become?

        Once I was with Phil things like Manhattan trips stopped all together and I was very much swept up into his life and his friend circle. I had lost myself in my relationship with him and then again in motherhood and becoming his caretaker. Standing just outside of Penn Station with John, looking at the big buildings and the craziness of the streets, brought a little light back inside of me that had been dimmed for many years. This moment in time felt like a return to myself and a day that I hadn’t really known that I needed until I was living it. And I was there with John, a man that I was trying my very best not to stare at. 

        We walked from the station to the hotel that we were going to be staying in for the night. We faded in and out of small talk as we walked.

        “Are you still nervous about the hotel room,” he asked me.

        I probably blushed somewhat. “No, I don’t think you’re a serial killer.”

        He laughed. “Ok, well let me know we can always get another room or separate keys…or whatever, whatever makes you comfortable.”

        I am taken with John in a multitude of ways. There is physical chemistry between us, but I am also taken with him for the way that he considers me. This was our first actual date with one another and he had gone out of his way to make it extra special for me. Despite myself, I had already begun to feel myself falling for him over our late night phone conversations, but since we were together I was feeling that pull even more and it surprised me because as artistic and romantic as I am, I am also very logical, but being with John, logic seemed to be leaving me quicker than I could try to grab it back. 

        When we get up to our hotel room, I put down my bag and walk over to the huge window overlooking the city. You could see the statue of liberty very faintly off in the distance and I just stood there and took all of it in. This weekend in so many ways was the return to myself and to the possibility of new beginnings with John. Eventually, John finished getting himself in order and I turned around to face him. 

        I laughed when I turned around, because the bathroom was totally illuminated and showcased the open shower to the room. A design feature probably included so that whoever was staying here could shower and still have a view of the city. John’s eyes follow my gaze and he too now sees the shower.

        “I’m sorry, if I am honest I had help with booking the room. Geez, that is one heck of a shower,” he adds, clearly embarrassed and nervous all at once. 

        I lightly touch his arm. “It’s okay, we will figure it out, but that is some shower for a weekend where no sex was agreed upon.”

        He laughs and smiles at me, it is his coy smile that he would go on to give me many times over the nearly year and a half that we would be together. It is when I know that he is humored, but reflective at the same time and the flash of his eyes that would always follow that coy smile of his, that would make me want to do everything and anything with him. 

        John excuses himself from the room to give me some privacy so that I can get ready to go to dinner. A new wave of excitement has found me and I eagerly take off my jeans and slip back into the dress with the pretty underwear that Sasha said all went well together. I feel beautiful and I feel like myself in those moments. John eventually comes back up and changes and then suddenly we are back on the streets of Manhattan walking to the Irish pub. 

        The food at the pub is not the greatest, but I am thankful for my first rum cocktail in many months and picking apart the tacos that were the only slightly appetizing thing they had to offer. We send back the flavorless mozzarella sticks and make a joke about how food in Manhattan and especially places like this are always hit or miss. John got a steak sandwich and after a bite, he immediately takes some off of his plate and puts it onto mine. It stops me for a moment because I am taken back to one of the many conversations that I had had over the years with dating and finding the right guy for you before she passed away a couple years before. One of the things she always told me about dating was to wait for the man who feeds you off of his own plate. To my grandmother this was a sign of both respect and care, because it showed that the man would want to provide for you and cared for you enough to take something away from himself and to give to you. I try to stop my mind from wandering into things that it is too soon to think about. 

        John pays for our food and drinks and we begin to walk towards the theater. He is attentive and talkative and constantly making sure that I am near him, not in a controlling way, but in a protective way that once again strikes something deep inside of me and I find myself beginning to fight with myself about how far I was going to allow this to go. In the back of my mind, I always think about my kids and that they too are part of the deal with whomever I wind up with. Will it all be too much for a single man used to his own life and the way he likes things? Despite myself and the reality of my situation, I allow the soft feelings and little butterflies to take over because at that moment, it is just John and I and my kids are a state away enjoying their first sleepover with their grandmother. 

        The broadway version of The Notebook totally butchers the book and the movie that I had loved for years. It gave into the need for wokeness that entertainment has turned to in recent years and both John and I leave confused as to who people even are in it as they frequently changed actors based on race in each scene. In one scene Noah was the black man, but in the next he is white again–it served no real purpose to the story and made it hard to follow. By the end of the show, neither John nor I stood for the ovation. 

        Turning to me, John asked, “Why aren’t you standing?”

        Knowing why, but not wanting to hurt his feelings since this was our first date and I knew the kind of planning that he did for it, I hesitated. 

        “I am not standing because it was awful.”

        I exhale with a smile. “Yes, I feel the same, but I really enjoyed being here with you.”

        His smile widened. “Yes, the company was made for a standing ovation, but not the singing by screaming at the top of their lungs.”

        I nod. “And I don’t know about you but I was confused as to who was who in every single scene change.”

        “Exactly! What was that?!”

        Afterwards, we meandered around the city in search of coffee for me and things to do. We find ourselves in Times Square, John buys both of us a New York hat. My body begins to feel the end of the excitement and the toll of a day steeped in travel and activity. I am growing tired as the night begins to unfold. 

        “Would you like to go back to the hotel,” John asks me. 

        “I would, but I would still like to do something when we get back there.” 

        “Well what should we do?” He stops walking for a moment and I follow suit. “Do you know how to play UNO? Or any card games?”

        I smile. “Yes to both. And I hate to brag, but I am one heck of a game of war player.”

        “Sounds like we better stop at a drug store and get UNO and some cards then.”

        We walk a couple more blocks and find a store that has both after a creepy elevator ride into a New York store basement and questionable people all around. Afterwards we walk back to the hotel and John excuses himself so that I can shower and change. When he comes back he readies himself for bed and we sit in our hotel room with Manhattan lit up behind us playing several games of war until I feel my eyes fighting themselves to stay open. There is heavy banter flying between us as we play war and make jokes about the physical tension between us. 

        Towards the end of our last game, John stops joking for a moment and looks at me. It is a gaze that he won’t go on to give me often, but when he does give it I know he wants me to clearly hear what he has to say, it makes me feel loved and protected. “Katherine,” he says, my name always sounding like honey from his mouth. “In all seriousness, I know how to be a gentleman and I will be one until you tell me that I no longer have to be.”

        I can feel my face flush ten different shades of red while my body can’t decide what it wants to do with itself. I clear my throat, trying to hold onto my composure and these sudden waves of intense feelings that have come sweeping into me. “Well then, do you like to cuddle?”

        He smiles and cleans up the rest of the cards. “I am a very good cuddler.”

        John slides into bed next to me. My head is all over the place. I am still breast feeding my youngest and I think to myself what if my body ultimately betrays me and I have to explain soaked sheets in the morning. Or worse yet what if one of the panic attacks that I have frequently been getting since Phil died takes over in the night and I wake up into it again, terrified that Phil is dying all over again. Then I look over at John and the noise in my head seems to stop. He invites me to lay down next to him and I let him hold me for the first time. 

A warm and peaceful feeling washes over me when he touches me for the first time and within moments, I am fast asleep and beside John, I sleep through the night for the first time since my husband died.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment

The Widowhood │ Preparing for Manhattan

A little under two months into our late-night phone conversations and messaging, John asks me to go and see a Broadway play with him. Out of all the worldly and cultured things I have done in my life and in my traveling, I somehow missed the Broadway play side of things. It would be my first time going to see a Broadway show and it would be the first time in over 10 years that I would be setting foot in New York City. A fact that would probably make my younger, 20-something self shudder because as an undergraduate at Rutgers, New York City and art history were my very existence.

The big event would be falling on Mother’s Day weekend, my first Mother’s Day as a widow. I had hoped my mother would just give me that and watch the kids so that I could have a true Mother’s Day: one that was about me and the cute guy I was pretty taken with at the moment. She agreed, though I felt somewhat begrudgingly. It would be the first time that I would be without all three kids and I couldn’t wait. My entire world since Phil had died had been taking care of my kids and for a moment, I got to have a weekend where I was getting to do something that I liked.

My mother had already begun trying to be in control of and become exceedingly intrusive into the entire weekend. I learned from my younger years that the best thing to do was to give answers that were truthful but did not give all the information that she was prying for. For instance, she did not need to know I would be staying in New York City that night.

Sasha Facetimes me to show me how to turn on my location for her and for my friend Lindsey who both knew I was staying in New York City that night.

“I really like the dress,” she says as I do a little twirl in front of my phone. “What are you wearing underneath it?”

I laugh. “We decided to take things slow and this whole overnight in New York City is more about just time together and not having to rush back to New Jersey.”

“And he knows you have three kids?”

I laugh again. “Yes, and he asked me if I wanted more and yes, I told him about my desire for one more. I left it open to two more because he doesn’t have kids of his own and I don’t want to take something away from him just because I am coming in with three of my own should we get serious.”

“How did he take that? Well…I’m assuming since you’re now setting up for this big date.”

“He sent me a picture last weekend when he was out with his friends of two geese with their four gooselings,” I send her the picture.

“That’s kind of adorable. Maybe the kid thing won’t be the big deal that you think it’s going to be. Are you going to answer my question about what you’re wearing underneath it?”

I show her the new underwear that I bought specifically for the new dress I also bought.

“It looks good! It’s a shame you decided not to show it this weekend,” she added slyly.

“Oh, I can’t even really think about that. I mean it’s not like I don’t want to, but for 10 years, I have only been with Phil. And then I had three kids, it all looks and feels different now after two kids naturally and a c-section. And to share that with a man that is not their father? I mean, how do you even?” I feel my face turn about 10 different shades of red.

Sasha is laughing at my innocence over the entire thing. “I think it will come naturally when you’re both ready and if he likes you, it won’t matter that your body has had three kids and is not 20-something years old anymore.”

I sigh. “I know you’re right, but not this weekend.”

“Alright not this weekend. Can I ask how long it has been?”

I hesitate. “Well, if Violet is turning two this summer and then add being pregnant with her on top of that, I mean we are heading into three years.”

“Seriously?” She’s visibly floored.

“He was a heart patient, after the last hospitalization that side of our relationship really scared me, but we wanted to try for another kid, so we did and then after that, he scared me especially after that life vest.”

A life vest is a vest that is worn by people in heart failure. It monitors the person’s heart and should their heart stop, it will shock them back into a beating heart. It is extremely sensitive, and the slightest movement will cause the vest to misread it as if their heart has stopped, causing it to send out all kids of alarms that it is about to shock the person back. People in heart failure are also very tired most of the time, so when this would happen with Phil, it would often be at night and would wake all of us up, but not him. I would then have to wake him up quickly so that the vest wouldn’t shock us both and kill me in the process. Those were some of the longest nights after his final hospitalization because after I would have him resettled and correctly monitored, I would then be putting down one if not all the children that were also woken up by the vest.

“I had no idea. And you never, I mean not like I could blame you if you did, but you never with anyone else?”

“Nope, was never even a thought. I loved my husband and I thought he would get better, and we would become better…I better go and finish packing, he’ll be here in a couple of hours.”

“Wait…you’re letting him pick you up?”

“Yes, I asked him to. I am allowing him into the inner sanctum,” I chuckle. My house has been a sort of sanctuary for me and the kids since Phil died and to allow people outside of my immediate circle into it, is kind of a big deal for me.

“Have a great time. I will check your location periodically, though I think this is going to be good. It’s really nice to see happy Katherine again, I haven’t seen her in quite a long time.”

We end our Facetime and I return to packing. I put on the soundtrack to The Notebook, the show that we were going to be seeing that night and I let my thoughts ease up. John starts texting me first with a cute video of his friend’s kids wishing him well on his date and then songs from The Greatest Showman. And despite myself, I just melt.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment