127 Alexandra
===
[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of the brave widow show episode number 127. And today I talk with a young widow, Alexandra, and she shares her story of widowhood at just 22 years old, which is incredible. Now, if you're listening to the podcast in a fairly real time manner, meaning around the time that this episode actually airs, then I want to invite you to join us to The Widow Winter Solstice.
The Widow Winter Solstice is an annual event that I host where we have a panel of amazing widows who Q& A style will field some of the toughest, Challenges, questions, and topics that I get from widows that I hear from them. And I have five amazing, generous, wonderful widows that are going to be present with us and speaking on this panel.
We're also doing a giveaway. I have books, I have Brave Widow swag, I have Amazon gift cards, and we would love to be able to gift those to you for Christmas. We're also going to have activities and music, and it's just a very fluid, enjoyable, cozy event.
It 19th, from 7 p. m. to 9 p. m. Central Standard Time, and guess what? You won't be on camera, so you can wear your PJs, you could wear your comfy clothes, you could pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa and cozy on in for an evening created for for widows by widows. To sign up, just go to BraveWidow. com. You will find the opt in form on the front page.
All right, let me introduce you to Alexandra. Alexandra is an artist, non profit founder, and writer that lost her fiancé in her early 20s while he was on military deployment. A few years after her loss, her grief was further complicated when she received a rare cancer diagnosis. She is now 10 years into her grief journey, five years cancer free, and about to marry her chapter two.
Connecting with other survivors was a vital turning point in her own life, and she values holding space for others along their grief journey. You can find Alexandra on Instagram at theworldoftigerlily.
Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
Alexandra, welcome to the show and thank you for being willing to share your story.
[00:03:08] Alexandra: Hi, thank you for having me. Really exciting.
So I am now 32, almost 33, but I experienced my first major loss with my fiance about 10 years ago in June. And we met through military friends. And he was deployed for about nine, it was supposed to be nine months. It was I think about four or five months into the deployment.
And unfortunately it was a friendly fire incident. And as somebody that is, uh, what they call, a wiance versus a widow I got to experience a little bit different military side of things. Essentially I, because I was. Not married on paper, even though we live together, shared bills we're living as a couple.
I was not allowed to know how he died. I wasn't even allowed to know that he died. And so it was it was an interesting process, to go
[00:04:14] Emily: through all of that.
So you were probably around like 22 at the time when all of this happened. And how did you even hear that something had happened to him at all?
[00:04:25] Alexandra: So we had heard things on the news. My essentially when something happens overseas, they go through like a communication blackout where they're not allowed to communicate home until the family members know for sure. And so I know that something had happened. I knew that they were on a blackout, so I wasn't sure who was involved or what had happened but things, somehow the news caught on and things started popping up in the news, and how I ultimately found out was that my my future mother in law called, and she had been alerted, and she couldn't really give me much because she was, she had just found out herself.
And so I really didn't know anything other than that he was gone. And so once I learned that it was that, denial, I called my mom up right away and she drove, an hour and a half to come be with me until we could figure something out. I got ahold of they call it rear D with the military, all the guys that kind of stay home and help take care of things at home, And they sent people over to my apartment, but again, they couldn't even tell me, who it was, what had happened.
They couldn't, they weren't allowed to share. One of his friends ultimately ended up calling me after they were all informed the next morning on what had happened. And he's the one that, that shared what exactly had happened. Did confirm that my fiance had passed.
[00:05:55] Emily: That had to be just so frustrating and overwhelming.
And my oldest is 22. So I can't even imagine him having to go through. That experience of you know something is going on, but nobody's really telling you anything. And they're saying they can't tell you anything. How did you survive? Like, how did you even get through that frustration and confusion?
[00:06:23] Alexandra: So it did take a little bit. I think, one of the biggest things is that you can't take away any of those emotions at all. No matter how you try or. Anyway, it's just working through it. For me, for the first six months, I was in a very dark place, very isolated. Didn't have any connection to people, really, because it, nobody gets it if they haven't been through it.
And, I'm glad that they don't get it. But about six months in, I heard of a program that connected different military widows with somebody that's been a little further out, at least two years out. And I've met what they called a peer mentor, and she actually happened to be moving to my area, which, it's really rare to connect with somebody that actually lives in the same state as you, let alone, in the same place.
She was about, I believe, nine years out when I had met her, and that was, like, the absolute turning point for me, was seeing somebody that was in a new relationship successful in their career, thriving and just having somebody that could say, Hey, you'll get to this point at some time to, it's not an overnight, and it's not.
Easy. And it's not just a snap of the fingers. It's hard work, but you'll get here and it's possible that's really what started shifting over into this. Like, why me? How am I going to survive this too? No, I am going to survive this and I'm going to start looking at life again. What can I do?
What hobbies can I try to find that little spark of joy again? And it really got me back out into the world, even if I was in the shadows for a moment, just okay, I'm not sure if I'm ready to come out and be normal and, and all of that, but it really gave me that first glimpse of, okay, I do have a future still.
[00:08:28] Emily: Yeah, I find a lot of times that in the beginning, people do just need that spark of hope, that belief that even though you have no idea how you're going to get there, just believing that it's even possible you could get there and that someone else is there, that opens your mind up to all new possibilities and allows you to go down that path of one baby step at a time, I'm going to figure out how to get there.
Yeah.
[00:08:56] Alexandra: Yes. Yes. Exactly.
[00:08:59] Emily: That's so important because for me early on in those days, I'd be on different Facebook groups or I'd hear from different widows and there are people, there's always people that have been in there year, I'm 10 years down the road and I still feel the same and it's not any better.
And I, it was just like created a visceral reaction. I was, did not want to hear. That, it wasn't ever going to get better because that was the most depressing thing to me is this is my life now and this is how it's always going to be. I didn't want to have to accept that.
[00:09:33] Alexandra: Yes, exactly. That's, it's that hope.
It's that little spark of hope and you don't realize that you need it so bad until you get it. And then it's the, for me, I had that fear of like even having that hope again, there's the one. Yeah. Yeah. I was able to sit with it and work through it and it became this thing of okay I tried this.
I interacted with people and okay, it wasn't so scary. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Let me just, go out and do a little bit more or, let me share even because I think that's a huge fear. That I had was, how do you even interact with people without bringing up what's going on in your world, and how do you not overshare, how do you not just put your walls up, and Not share at all.
It was really a learning experience of trying to find that boundary and, reconnecting with people that may not understand or may not have ever even known Justin.
[00:10:38] Emily: It's like you feel you need to put a disclaimer out there. Like as soon as you meet someone and I don't know what
drives us to do that, but it's almost like we feel very compelled like people need to know that we, are widowed or that we've experienced this trauma and we're trying and I'm not sure why, but that I can understand how it always felt like it was just under the surface. And I was just looking for the right time to tell someone.
But obviously it also is a big part of your story and how that has helped shape you even to the person that you are today.
[00:11:16] Alexandra: Yes, I think for me, it was I almost used it as armor, like if I could control it and put it out there first, instead of being sideswiped if somebody did happen to know and asked a question or anything like that.
I think for me personally, I definitely was like, I'm going to say it first, because then It can't hurt me as much and I'm ready for it because it, you've ever been out in a random place or, you met somebody that you didn't think know, knew about it. And then all of a sudden they're, they bring it up or they ask or somehow it comes up in a way that, for me, I wasn't expecting it.
It was almost like being flooded over all over again. And so I think I really did use it as. Nope, I'm going to say it first. That way, nobody can do that to me. And now I feel like I can still do that sometimes, but it's almost like for me, I found that it's almost something that like, I don't like to share as much anymore because it's.
It's something very private to me and not everybody deserves to know about him, in a way, as much as I, my fiance was an incredible person, and, still a human, but I really think he was a very good man. And as much as I want people to know about him, at the same time, it's it's, this was also a wound for me.
Not everybody gets to see that one.
[00:12:57] Emily: That's a really interesting way to think about it. One of the ladies that I coach, she talks about having a grief shield. Although hers is more, she's thinking about it a little differently, but at the end of the day, it's still the same of having that protective thing between us and other people and trying to stay in control and trying to maintain our composure in those ways.
It's very similar. When you started thinking about doing new things or trying to figure out how to find out who you are now and rebuild your life. Typically in those early days, things are really scary. So how did you find the confidence to do some of those things even when you felt afraid?
[00:13:46] Alexandra: I think for me, it was that alternative.
Kind of how you mentioned hearing Those people that, after 10 years they still felt like they were in the same place as us. I was almost driven by that fear of becoming like that. I was so afraid to never find happiness that I that overcame the fears of being able to actually get out and do something.
And so for me That was the biggest thing. I think just driving is, oh my gosh, I don't want to end up, crazy cat like it. I'm already the crazy cat lady, but I don't want to end up, the crazy cat lady alone. And, just not being able to experience and enjoy the world anymore.
So that was my driving force. I'm scared of what's out there. But I'm more scared of the fear, the fear of missing out, you know?
[00:14:39] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really important. Do you mind to share some of the things that you tried or that you went to that kind of built your confidence over time?
[00:14:51] Alexandra: Yeah, I would say for me volunteering was a huge part. So I think it's a double edged sword. But volunteering can be really good at taking your focus off your own problems. I think sometimes it can take up it like it takes your focus too much off your own problems and can be a a way to unhealthily deal with them.
But I started when I just had a lot of anxiety about being around people that just didn't seem to get it. And so I started working with families. So I went and volunteered at stables. It was a military stable at the Air Force Academy, beautiful location some really great people. I just got out there and I started working.
Like I started shoveling the poop in the morning just interacting with the horses, helping people get saddled up and go on the trails. It was a really good way to, to do something, move my body. Feel productive again and ease into, interactions with people that like, Hey they may not exactly get it, but for me, it was still a military community.
And it, they, they understood maybe not directly, but that was huge. Journaling was really good for me that seemed to be the way to get a lot of my emotions out. Sometimes I would just watch those like really sappy movies if I knew I needed to cry, but I just, for whatever reason, I couldn't seem like anytime I needed to cry and wanted to cry, couldn't.
And then all the times that it was. And I broke into cry or like embarrassing to cry like in the middle of the grocery store, or, any of those times where you're like, anywhere but here. So I started doing that I would watch sappy movies, I would listen to those songs that like the menu here I'm just your tears up.
I'll just let it out in a safe space. I mean there is a car, the shower, or, just somewhere. And then. Like meditation and yoga. That was my figuring out how to be still because for me after I got back out there of just living life again, it's almost like a, like I started chasing like I couldn't just sit.
I couldn't just be. And the meditation and yoga side of it really helped me, yes, it's good to get out there and go and experience life again to sit back and also just be quiet and just experience those feelings that was really healing for me too.
[00:17:50] Emily: Yeah. I think those are all great things, with volunteering the beautiful way that you connected that is, of course, in grief.
We do focus very inward. We're very consumed by ourselves and everything happening around us. And, that's needed so that we can heal our heart and that we can figure out what our next steps forwards are going to be. And sometimes it's just good to give your brain a break and just let it focus on something else.
Or in providing to other people what you wish people would do for you. Or Volunteering and helping. And it's amazing that it was a physical thing too. So it gets your body moving and that also brings some relief to the stress and things that you feel in your brain and in your nervous system. That's awesome.
And then knowing that you needed that time for meditation and yoga to just like. Be still let things calm and settle. And be able to focus and reflect. So how do you feel now, nearly 10 years later that you've been walking that journey? How do you look back on that? How do you feel these days?
[00:19:10] Alexandra: If I choose to go back to that place, it can feel like it was yesterday for me.
But a lot of times I guess I've made the conscious effort of, do I really want to center my grief around the negatives and all of that? Or do I really want to start celebrating that the time I did have with them was good and the person that he was and all of those things. So I really try to make conscious effort and it's not to say that, those days where, there is grief don't come up.
But it's really. It's really shifted 10 years now, and now I feel like it comes out in ways that are, I wouldn't have expected. Like currently, I'm about to get married to my current partner, Dylan, and it's been absolutely wonderful and exciting. I never really thought I could have that again.
And for me though, now what I've realized is how it's coming out is in The anxiety of Oh, no, what if this gets taken away from me again, what if I, it happens again. And so it's really shifted in how it's presenting itself, but it's still very much attached to grief, and, the loss of my first partner.
And so, I've just really noticed that it comes out in ways that I'm like, Oh, that. Yeah, I guess that is connected to, to, losing Justin, but I feel like 10 years out though, overall it really has shifted to something that I found peace with. I would say it probably took maybe about five years for me before the death anniversaries weren't this really, dreadful, thing.
Yeah. That I had to get through and work up to and all of that, but it really has become something for me over the 10 years, I feel like I have become way more in tune with my emotions as well. So I can always tell leading up to the death anniversary, I might be a little bit more irritated than usual or a little bit more on guard or things like that, but I'm able to see it now.
Yeah that's coming up. Yeah. But you know what, I'm going to acknowledge it, but it's not going to be this sad thing. It's going to be a day of joy. And so I try to put that little bit of a different spin on it.
It's definitely gotten easier over the years.
[00:21:57] Emily: That's good. And I'm glad that you've found peace.
And I like the way that you worded a lot of that, which is Yeah, grief will still show up in different ways, and it'll still, it's not like you've forgotten that happened to you, or that hasn't still somewhat changed how you look at life, but you're not in the volatile throes of sorrow and being crushed by sadness every day either.
And I think sometimes that's the message people put out there, which is, Oh, it never gets better. You just learn how to deal with it. And it's not necessarily, it doesn't have to be true. And it doesn't have to be that way. So I'm glad that you worded it the way that you did and that grief Can be both things which is I love the life that I had with this person and I love the life that I have with this other person and the life that we're gonna have in the future and I'm gonna cherish every day in every moment because we don't know how much time that we have and So that's amazing.
And I think you also do really well at just being aware of your own thoughts and your own feelings And for a lot of widows, sometimes I tell them that's like the first step is just to be curious. Oh that's an interesting thought. Why did I think that? Like, why did that pop up? What's behind that?
What's underneath that? Let's just get curious about why I'm feeling a certain way or why I'm having some of these thoughts. And sometimes it can be really surprising what you uncover through that.
[00:23:27] Alexandra: It's really one of those things that it really does make a difference. I think when you shift how you think about those emotions, because I think there's so much already attached to those emotions that, expectations of other people and what you think grief should look like, what other people think grief should look like, and then what it actually is and how it comes out.
And it's one of those things that emotions aren't negative, they're not negative. So if that was a really hard thing. For me, I think was like, just, I'm a very I don't like crying in public. I don't, so when I would cry in public, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.
And there's that shame and there's that guilt. And it's just oh, and then anger sometimes when people wouldn't understand these are all, you experience every emotion in grief and none of them are wrong. None of them are bad. There's no good or bad emotions. It's just strong emotion.
And, I think being able to step back and recognize okay don't know what's going on with this emotion right now, but like you said, be curious. And for me, that was what turned like a mountain of an emotion back down into a manageable little molehill. Just getting curious.
Asking me questions. I wonder where's this coming from? What? What is behind the anger? Yeah. What hurt is there? And acknowledging it. I think that is really important.
[00:25:16] Emily: Even just trying to evaluate. Am I tired right now? Am I hungry? Is there something going on? That's just feeding a lot of this for me.
A lot of times it typically is. I'm just really tired. When I'm tired, I just feel my emotions. So much more strongly. And so sometimes I have to just acknowledge okay, I'm just tired right now and I might not even feel this way in a couple of hours. Like I just need to acknowledge what I'm thinking or feeling.
And when I feel better rested, then I'll look at it again. I bet for now this is going on a whole, it's going on a shelf over here. It's just going on hold. That's all I can get back there.
[00:25:57] Alexandra: Yeah, I think that's a good one too.
[00:26:00] Emily: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Alexandra: When I was newer in my grief I lost too much weight. I wasn't eating regularly, because when you lose some weight, you're like, why is food important?
Or, for some people it's, that becomes your comfort. And it's it's that self care aspect that I think It's so important to get back to or to learn and for me, I was never good at self care. That was really one thing I appreciated about Justin was he could tell if I needed to take care of myself a little bit better and be like, Hey, you go take a bath or you go unwind.
And so when I lost him, it's Oh, how do I do that for myself? Like, how do I prioritize myself and all of that? And it's really. It is a learning process and I mean it, it never stops, it's a continuous thing I feel like when you are either depressed or you are anxious or you're stressed or life is always going to happen, there's always going to be those curveballs.
It's that moment of oh yeah, hey, maybe I haven't been taking care of myself and what can I do? Just those little things.
[00:27:09] Emily: Nathan was the cook, he did things with the kids since I traveled so much for work, and I used to joke with him because I hated cooking, and I used to be like, if anything happens to you, it's Totino's pizza for me every night, or, I just, I can't really imagine myself putting in a ton of, he was an amazing cook.
And it would just be like chaos in the kitchen because there'd be 45 ingredients in a recipe or something. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not ever doing that. So it isn't the case today, but it is challenging and a painful reminder when that person fulfilled that role and helped you like, help make sure you were taken care of and that you were taking care of yourself.
And then all of a sudden you lose that too. That can be really tough. What would you say to other widows that are out there that are in the early days and maybe they're in a similar situation. Maybe they weren't legally married. Maybe they don't have a great relationship, even with their in laws or sometimes that happens too, or they just feel cut out of the loop or just confused about what's going on with everything.
What encouragement or advice would you give to those widows?
[00:28:23] Alexandra: I would say there's no one right way. And I think it's really important to remember that everyone does grieve differently. And, I didn't have a good relationship with my in laws after he died. I did before, but that, unfortunately that's a really common thing that happens.
I think just having grace, that, that would be it. Having grace for yourself, having grace for others. You can set boundaries and not invite things you don't want into your life, but you don't have to hate people. You don't
I hope they're not good. I, I hope they hurt just as much as me. There's no need that just give yourself grace and give other people grace and give people grace that. That don't get it because it, it can be so easy to fall into that anger of Oh my gosh, this person said this to me.
They just don't get it. I can't believe they would say that or they did this, or they didn't even think about how this would affect me. Or, there's a million different rabbit holes you can go down. But I think just having grace overall with everyone that what I really liked doing was when that would happen.
I remember I am so happy that they're not in my shoes, like I, what they said may not have been appropriate or may have hurt my feelings, but I am so happy that another person gets to not be in my shoes and gets to not experience that. And it takes away that personal mess of it. And yeah, just great.
[00:30:08] Emily: Yeah we have to remember at times that before we went through this, we probably weren't the greatest at being there for someone else either when they were in a period of big loss, at least that's what I remind myself. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know, like how long does somebody grieve over their lost spouse?
I had no idea. And so I, to your point, I just try to remember that sometimes people have to be educated and maybe you don't have the energy for that, we also allow a lot of grace with people that they probably just don't know, they probably don't know how to be there for us.
Ever looked that well. I want to thank you so much for your time and for coming on the show and being willing to share your story. I know it's going to help encourage and inspire the widows that hear this.
[00:31:01] Alexandra: I'm really glad that I was able to get to do this. Thank you.
