My name is Nora and on March 3, 2016, I became a 32 year old widow when my husband of just 5 months unexpectedly passed away. He called me his bluebird, hence the name of my blog(more on that later). I also have two beautiful stepchildren, ages 7 & 4. But sadly, stepparents do not have legal rights, so within one moment, I lost my entire family & life as I knew it changed drastically. There is no way to prepare for such a life altering event. You learn quickly through tragedies like this that you can’t control certain things in life, but I believe you can control what comes out of that tragedy.
In the last few months I have had a strong feeling that I am supposed to do something with this journey I’m on. Not just “survive it” but make something beautiful come out of it! I believe God is calling me to do this. I’m not sure where it will lead but I have a feeling it is a step towards something amazing. I truly believe I can help people. Help others dealing with grief not feel so isolated & alone, and help people who haven’t walked through grief themselves understand what we are going through. I have come to realize that grief of this magnitude is very misunderstood.
I went back and forth about doing this blog. You have to really be willing to put yourself out there. Be vulnerable. Was I ready? Could I really make a difference? Would people even care what I had to say? And then I was reading this book, “On Fire” by John O’Leary (if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it!) and I came across these passages:
“I’ve learned again and again in life that you can show courage or you can be comfortable. But you can’t do both at the same time. While comfort might be popular, courage changes lives.”
“My friend, we frequently cheapen our ability to influence radical change. We underestimate our personal ability to be a spark that ignites and influences the world in profoundly important ways.”
After reading these I realized I don’t want to be comfortable, I want to be courageous. I want to change lives, even if I only touch one person. I want to use my tragedy to help others and I believe it’ll help me as well.
I want to take a moment and explain my title, “The Bluebird Widow”. One day my husband came home (before he was my husband) and told me “Babe, I heard a song today and it’s our song. You are my bluebird.” I had no idea what that meant but he quickly played it for me. It’s called “When You’re Here” by John Fullbright. These lyrics were what he was referring to:
“In my heart stands a scarecrow, if he’s hurt he doesn’t say so, And he chases everything he loves away. But at night when it’s colder, there’s a bluebird on his shoulder, and he whispers that he’ll hold her one bright day.” If you have never heard this song, I recommend you listen to it. It’s absolutely beautiful. From that day on, he would say I was his bluebird. We danced to that song on our wedding day, we even had a bluebird topper on our wedding cake (pictured above). When I hear that one line now “he whispers that he’ll hold her one bright day”, it has a whole new meaning. I know he will hold me again…one bright day.
So here I am, I’m inviting you on my journey, to be a part of it. It won’t be a story filled with only sunshine and happy days(but of course there will be some!), it will be real. It will be raw, honest, filled with love, tears, understanding and support. It’s not the story I would have written for myself but it is My Story.
The Bluebird Widow 