Death of a Spouse

Submitted by Anonymous

I was married to an attorney. We had six children between 3 and 23 years of age. We were happy with our kids. I did most of the housework such as cooking and taking care of the kids, and my husband did everything that entailed leaving the house such as banking, grocery shopping, and dropping the kids to school. Our goal was to provide good education and upbringing to our kids.

When my youngest daughter was 3 years old, my husband suffered a heart attack and passed away. I felt numb. I don’t remember the first three days but on the third day, I saw someone feed spoiled milk in a bottle to my three year old who had been off the bottle for 2 years. I snapped out of my numbness and immediately took away the bottle. I made her chapati (bread) and sabji (vegetable). She would not eat so I took her outside the house to show her birds and feed her. Something happened to me that instant and I just started doing everything that was necessary for the well-being of my kids. My life has passed very quickly trying to make sure that my children have food, shelter, and a good education. I did not realize until years later when my youngest daughter asked me, “Mom, weren’t you depressed when dad passed away?” and for the first time I realized and replied, “I didn’t have time to.” I never thought about this consciously but having a clear goal to provide a good upbringing for my children did not allow me to get depressed and gave me a reason to live.