Anyone who knows me well can attest to my love of shoes. Everything from the highest stiletto to a chunky, platform tennis shoe adorns the shelves of my closet. My favorite scene of the original Sex and the City movie was when Carrie saw the closet Big had built for her in their newly purchased penthouse apartment. She carefully removed a pair of blue satin Monolo Blahnik’s with a square, crystal buckle and gently placed them on the shelf of the new closet. I get it. I too would rather have the shoes, and the gorgeous space to house them, than a diamond ring.
So when a man recently asked me how anyone could fill my late husband’s shoes I didn’t hesitate.
“Nobody will every be able to fill his shoes. What I’m looking for is a new pair of shoes that will sit next to his.”
Have you ever had that pair of shoes that make you feel amazing every time you put them on? Over the years they may wear, go out of style or possibly they don't fit anymore. You may search for a pair to replace them, but nothing ever feels quite like your original shoes. Just when you’re about to give up, you find new ones that are different, but amazing in their own right. They aren’t like the shoes you loved before and that’s ok because they fit who you are now. So you buy them, take them home and put them on the shelf next to the old shoes…not a replacement…an addition.
My late husband’s "shoes" were generous, kind, funny and irritating as hell sometimes. He left sweet little sticky notes for me to find during the day. He brought me flowers for no reason. He never told me no, even when he should have. He had an annoying love of all sports. He was obsessed with things looking neat, even if they didn’t make sense. He avoided confrontation at all cost. He was proud of me and told me how smart I was all the time. He was an over thinker. He called me "Sweetheart". He told me he loved me every single day.
As lovely as his “shoes” were, I can’t imagine that there would ever be an exact replica. So instead I look for a pair that will compliment this life I’ve built. It is less demanding, a little less fancy and a lot slower. My new “shoes” will feel comfortable from the start. They will have all the right features for this new existence. Most importantly they won’t need their own shelf, they will be content to sit next to Mark’s “shoes” without trying to be them.
That is how I look at the potential for new love. When we are lucky enough to find each other, he will see himself as a compliment to the love I already have. Love is infinite and the new can share space with the existing. Neither of those diminishes the other. He will be a welcome addition, not a replacement.
Updated: Oct 24, 2023
Think about some of the things that you want to reinvent in your life. Big or small, it doesn’t matter because it is about you and your needs. Below is a list of categories that you can start to explore. You don’t have to have the answers all at once. What you decide today isn’t permanent. It is your life and you get to reinvent it as many times as you want to.
One of the things that I felt was really helpful was to choose a category and just journal about it. Free write anything that comes to mind as you ponder that category. You may be surprised at what comes up. You many find that you aren’t even writing about the category you though you were going to write about.
I wanted to share a page out of my journal where I was thinking about the new home that I was looking for and how much maintenance I wanted or could handle. The entire entry turned out to be about pools and water. Whatever came up I just wrote about it. As a result, I quit looking for homes with pools, something I was sure I wanted.
Another thing you may notice about this entry is that it is in complete sentences. Even though I seemed to jumble the past, present and future the thoughts are fairly linear otherwise. I have other journal entries that have doodles, little drawings and single words sprinkled into the free writing. There is no wrong way to do this.
Below is a list of categories. These are just suggestions and you may find that there are others you wish to explore. What are there areas of your life that you can reinvent to become the person you want to be after loss? You have other areas to explore? That’s fantastic, go with it and keep discovering yourself.
Write as quickly as you can and put everything that comes to mind on the page. Nobody else will ever see this, it is just an exercise in discovery. You may even want to do the exercise a few times with the same category. You can see in my journal entry that I wasn’t even addressing the category I thought I needed to explore. Time may change the areas that you want to reinvent in your life.
Doing this exercise doesn’t commit you to reinventing anything right now. As I said before, you might want to revisit one of these categories, or a category that you came up with, more than once. When you are ready, choose something that you are confident you can handle and make a commitment to make that one change. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s OK. You tried. Yea, you!!
I've been in real estate for a long time and like most Realtors® my lifestyle dictated who my clients were. Neighbors, friends, family and my husband's colleagues made up the majority of my business. When I became a widow myself, I realized that nobody was serving our community specifically.
After getting my real estate license in Texas, I interviewed firms to see who would support my vision of working 100% with widows. This isn't an easy demographic because we don't connect in the same way that neighbors, friends or family connects. But with the support of my company, @properties | Christie's International Real Estate I moved forward in creating a program that addresses the unique needs of widows.
There are legal and tax nuances that just don't exist with the typical residential sale. It is important to me that any Realtor® working with a widow is knowledgable about these things so that there aren't unnecessary surprises along the way. In addition to knowing the business of widowhood, I believe it is important that anyone working with a woman in our community, has an extraordinary level of empathy. Real estate can be a demanding and ruthless business sometimes and having someone who can negotiate the best deal possible is important.
Just as important is being able to read your emotional state and respond well. We all know it is uncomfortable being a widow or talking about loss. I dealt with a number of Realtors® who ignored any mention of my husband. By the time I finished selling my primary home I was exhausted from the emotional toll it took to get through the process with people who glossed over why I was selling to begin with. You may not want to talk about your spouse or have strangers acknowledge what you are going through. If that's the case, your Realtor® will need to understand your desire.
We can't necessarily teach empathy, but we can certainly make real estate professionals aware that how they interact with you at this time matters. We can make sure they understand that if they are uncomfortable with your loss, they should not represent you. We need them to be uncompromising in protecting your sale, as well as your state of mind.