Don’t Call Me a Widow – Part 21

Ask Yourself

I woke up this morning and, before my feet even touched the floor, I made a decision. I decided that today I would not ask “why me” but instead ask “what now.” That small shift in wording has become one of the most powerful tools in my toolbox since Rich died.

For a long time, I didn’t realize how much power lived inside a single word. “Why” keeps us looking backward, circling the same unanswerable question like a dog chasing its tail. “What” moves us forward. It opens a door instead of staring at a wall. I didn’t learn this overnight, and some mornings I still wake up and reach for “why” out of habit. But I catch myself faster now, and that’s growth.

Rich used to tease me and say I overthought everything — “Karen, just make the decision and go,” he’d say, usually about something as simple as which restaurant to pick for dinner. I’d laugh it off, but the truth is, he wasn’t wrong. He moved through life with a certainty I envied, and now that he’s gone, I find myself borrowing his voice in my head when I’m stuck. I hear him nudging me: just make the decision and go. So, some days, that’s exactly what I do — for him, and for myself.

I want to talk for a moment about legacy, because it’s been on my mind. Legacy isn’t only the memories we keep — it’s the way we let the people we loved continue to shape how we move through the world. Rich’s boldness, his humor, his refusal to sit still — those didn’t die with him. They live in me now, whether I asked for them or not. Every time I choose courage over comfort, I am carrying him forward. That is a kind of immortality no headstone can offer.

I heard a phrase recently that stopped me in my tracks: “Grief is love with nowhere to go.” I don’t fully agree with the “nowhere” part anymore. I think grief is love that has to find a new place to go — into how we live, who we help, what we create, who we become. The love doesn’t disappear. It just changes address.

So here is my ask of you today, my friend: pick one small thing that scares you a little and do it this week. Not because it will fix anything. Not because it will erase the missing. But because you are still here, and being here is not something to waste.

Join me on this journey.

#YesICan Coaching with Karen

Email: Kh.yesican1@gmail.com