A Widow’s Hope: A Guide for Widows in Survival Mode

By Julie Escalante Ortiz

A Widow’s Hope shares a unique story as a young widow with children who shares the raw, relatable ways she dug her way out of the trenches and back to the land of the living. 

There are many books about widowhood and grief. While helpful when the time is right, the shock and the aftermath of such a traumatic experience can make it difficult to find the time and motivation to read them while surviving the daily obstacles that zap your energy. 

Right now, the widow is too busy surviving funeral planning, endless calls and texts from family, tireless efforts to obtain the death certificate, meetings with social security, arrangements to be ironed-out with banks, mortgagors, and debts. Not to mention the practical things, like ensuring the children have been fed, arranging who will take them to school while you deal with the horrible details such as picking out his casket, or helping your children with things only you can help with? 

And then it hits her, “How will I even tell them that their father is dead? They don’t even know what ‘dead’ means!” Just thinking of the unending list of things to be done can leave the widow feeling smothered and breathless. Now is not the time for a novel; now is the time for a survival book, because right now, that’s what the widow is doing—surviving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781631959752

Julie Escalante Ortiz

Julie Escalante Ortiz is a mother, teacher, musician, writer, and public speaker. She earned her degree in Theology from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. She has since used her degree to impact the youth community as a missionary, youth pastor, high school Theology teacher, guitar and voice teacher, Spanish teacher, and girls’ soccer coach. She is currently the Theology and Latin Teacher for the diocese of Austin. Julie continues to impact the widowed community by coordinating and facilitating grief support groups, performing by sharing her singing and public speaking, and creating a Memorial Scholarship Award program in memory of her husband, Javier Ortiz, for graduating seniors. Julie and her three beautiful children live in Killeen, Texas.

Book preview

Introduction

I am sorry you had to buy this book. Your world has now changed forever. It has been flipped upside down and you don’t know who you are anymore, much less where you are going. You haven’t even begun to process the loss of your soulmate, the loss of your identity, the loss of your friends, and maybe even the loss of your faith. Life as you knew it is gone forever. This traumatic experience has plucked you from your normal routine with a normal family and tossed you into survival mode—treading water upon the raging waves as they try to wash you under, and there’s no lifeboat in sight.

The only thing you need to hear right now is nothing. There is not one thing you can hear in the whole wide world that will comfort you. What you need is, not words, but arms to hold you, shoulders for you to cry on, ears to listen to you, and your children to hold and kiss you. You need someone to just sit with you, not try to understand your pain. Sure, I could tell you what you’ve already heard a hundred times by now: Take one day at a time, or, Just breathe, or, It just takes time, but I know as much as any widow that you don’t need to hear that again. There are some losses in life in which there is no end to our grief. I wish someone had told me this as a young widow of just twenty-nine years old with three little children aged three, five, and seven.

There are many books about widowhood and grief. Though those books are helpful when the time is right, the shock and the aftermath of such a traumatic experience can make it difficult to find the time and motivation to read them while surviving the daily obstacles that zap your energy. Right now, you’re too busy surviving funeral planning, endless calls and texts from family, tireless efforts to obtain the death certificate, meetings with social security, arrangements to settle debts, and all the calls to banks, mortgagors, employers, and more. Not to mention the practical things, like ensuring the children have been fed, arranging who will take them to school while you pick out the casket, or helping your children with things only you can help with. And then it hits you: How will I even tell them that their father is dead? They don’t even know what ‘dead’ means! Just thinking of the unending list of things to be done can leave you feeling smothered and breathless. Now is not the time for a novel. Now is the time for a survival book, because right now, that’s what you are doing—surviving.

The following chapters are only a fellow widow’s experience combined with practical advice for surviving the next months of this new life. You will hear me say many times throughout this book that it is not healthy to tell someone else how to grieve. I am not attempting to do this. I am merely sharing my story of walking through the dark valley while sharing the ways that I dug my way out of the trenches and back to the land of the living. Do not let anyone tell you how to grieve. At the end of the day, we all will choose a path. What works for some may be painful for others, and vice versa.

Also, for those of you reading this because you are close to a widow or widower, please understand that many widowed people feel paralyzed in their grief and may lack the motivation to read anything at present, much less work through the grieving process. Some may not even be aware that there is anything to heal within themselves and may prefer to stay where they are despite being in a painful state of denial and avoidance. If that’s the case, you might be the one benefiting from reading this so you can share the information with them the best way you know how. I remember the first time someone gave me a book after my loss—I wanted to spit! But when the time was right, it was there. Please keep in mind that no one can force healing. The widow has to be in a place of such great pain that the pain of staying where they are is greater than the potential pain of moving forward with their grieving process. When they get to that place, you will be ready to give them this book.

To My Javier

My dearest love, it has taken me nine years to complete this part of the book. I wrote all the other chapters before this one and just left this part blank because the pain was too great. Here I am, nine years later, staring at the page, and I still can’t find the words. How do I put into words the details of your last breaths? As I grapple with the death occurring inside of me from the death of you, I am having to ask you to help me write these words for us because I can’t seem to find the strength. So now I imagine your big, strong hand holding mine. I imagine you leading my pen across this page soaked in tears.

I wish I could go back in time and change February 9, 2013. Oh, the countless times I lay daydreaming of warning you and your coworker Mike of the horrific nightmare that was about to unfold at that chemical plant that morning. You weren’t even supposed to work that day, but you were going in as a favor. I vividly remember waking groggily to a crack in the door as light poured into our dark bedroom. You came in and said your goodbye the same way you had a million times before. You leaned down over me, kissed me, and said, I filled up your car’s tank and I charged your phone. See you in a few hours, babe. I love you. I sleepily replied, I love you, baby, be careful, as I always did. I listened to the heavy steps of your work boots steadily fade down the hallway and out the door. God, help me! If only I had jumped out of bed and thrown my arms around your neck and never let you go . . .

SECTION 1:

Survival Mode

Chapter 1

Picking Out the Tombstone— Surviving the Funeral

My dearest love, I sit here with my dad. I have just learned it is to be a closed-casket funeral. It didn’t register exactly what that meant at first because my brain is lagging from exhaustion and takes minutes to catch up. This news buckles me over in agony, and despite heaving deep breaths into my lungs, I still feel like I’m suffocating: Wait! I won’t be able to see him? I won’t be able to say goodbye? The funeral home staff look with eyes full of pity at the withered, frail twenty-nine-year-old mother standing before them and reply, No. I’m so sorry.

How could I be this slow to realize this? How could I just now grasp that, because you died in an explosion, your wife and children will have nothing to say goodbye to? I feel like I’ve been robbed all over again. We all have. To have a final goodbye and look down upon your face one last time as you lie in your casket has been carrying me through these days. My love, how will I endure life without seeing you again? Hearing your voice? Smelling your hair? Feeling your touch?

I am led into a room where I am shown a variety of caskets—bronze, gold, metallic, wooden—all lined with satin. It seems too difficult a task. Do I choose a gold or silver casket? I instinctually grab my phone to call you because you are always the one I call when I am faced with difficult decisions, but I can’t ask you to help with this one. The funeral director now asks me if I would like to engrave a photo of you on the top of your casket. My esophagus burns from swallowing down my stomach’s contents for the tenth time since breakfast. The director asks which casket I would like. In my mind, I overturn and hurl all the caskets, screaming NO! as I run out of the building, pulling out my hair in sheer madness.

Suddenly, I snap back to reality as the funeral director asks again, Ms. Ortiz? Which casket would you like to choose? I respond, We’ll take this one. I think he would like this casket. Then he leads my shell of a person into the next room to pick out your tombstone. Hmm, do I add a picture on your headstone or not? I cannot believe I am even asking myself this question! Is this real life? This has to be a nightmare. This agony cannot be imagined, but here I am, living it. I visualize taking out my brain because I need rest from the incessant churning of my mind. As we sit down to plan your funeral, I am at a loss for words at the ease at which the director proceeds to discuss the details of my husband’s funeral, as if we were planning an event! I come to another agonizing realization: I will actually have to be present. How? My love, how in this world will I survive your funeral without you?

I think back to the recent painful funerals of both of our grandmothers earlier this year and how much I depended on your strong shoulders to cry on, hold me up, and support me when I felt weak. This pain has not yet been realized by my psyche, and perhaps that is the only saving grace that will see me through your funeral.

Looking into our children’s eyes, I cannot believe that you will never hold them again. You will never hide from them during hide-and-seek, play nerf-gun wars, dance with your daughter,