‘My identity is being tossed around from all sides’
Image: Little Detail Photography
Tabitha (44) lives with her sons Teun (7) and Willem (3) in Haarlem. Her husband was diagnosed a year ago: an untreatable brain tumor. A month later he passed away. How do you move on as a family after such a sudden loss? In these columns you get an insight into moments they experience. The first year without dad.
And, when you float to the surface after all the misery, you wake up in a new world. A world with different rules and names. For example, I am now in the box: Young widow. That feels like a name of the sad kind. A widow, I get the image of Italian mothers in big black skirts and a scarf on the head, with a knot under the chin. In this new world, I am also a single mother. I had not chosen this. That I am suddenly called guardian of my own children. Why? I am the parent, after all, nothing has changed, has it? Am I single now? But I don’t feel that way. My identity is being tossed around from all sides. It takes time and energy to get used to it. If it ever went.
‘That’s how I’m now in the box: Young widow. That feels like a name of the sad kind’
At the cemetery I see that flowers have been placed with the boy lying next to Frank. I look at the stone and see that it was his birthday. A few days later I run into his parents. ‘How beautiful your son’s grave looked,’ I compliment them. “I read it was his birthday.” ‘Birthday?’ the father responds angrily. “We call that his birthday these days. It’s not his birthday anymore, is it?’ Oops, obviously I said something very wrong. ‘Sorry,’ I stammer, ‘I don’t know either, this is new to me too.’ To myself I think: I thought we were in the same boat. I find it strange to suddenly artificially give a birthday a different name. When we celebrate Frank’s birthday with family and friends I call it ‘celebrating/honoring Frank’s birthday’. Hopefully I’m not offending anyone there and I’ve solved a bit well.
Read also: A year of mourning: “What would it be like if he had grown older with us?”
What surprises me the most is that there is no word for children who are missing one parent due to death. At least not that I know of. Children can never describe their situation in one word. It’s not a status in their passport. That in itself would be handy so that I don’t have to carry Frank’s death certificate every time we go on vacation by plane. Of course the guys can just explain it, but I wonder if a clear word would help them feel more understood. Because not only my identity has changed, certainly theirs as well.
