Widowhood Is Like A Butterfly's Chrysalis

The chrysalis is a butterfly pupa, a hard skin which appears after the caterpillar's final shedding attached to a leaf via a silk pad spun by the caterpillar. 

A cocoon is just a constructed silk casing used by moths and certain other types of insects.

You're not the same. You're never the same again. 

At any age, losing a spouse is a major life change.

It's not about "getting over", it's about going through, around, beside and between. 

It's like many life experiences you don't want, don't welcome and wish never happened. 

Can you prepare? Somewhat. Depends.

Financially, perhaps. Emotionally, to some degree.
How long are those changes? 
Can they be analyzed and set into a specific "step sequence"?
Will I ever be "the same" again?

Widowhood is not one size fits all.

I disagree with anyone who says there are stages or sequences to grief or to moving forward. And, it isn't just in how long it might last or the specific reactions.

It's not like a spider's web that is spun in a pattern according to the specific type of spider. Our lives are far more complex and the "webs" we weave in life aren't solely those we create.

Life proceeds, recedes, moves in different directions based on who, what, where, when and why, including the reactions we CHOOSE to make as well as those that give us no choices but to enter, go through and hopefully survive, until reaching the other end.

You may have plans, you may have interests and you may have choices and privileges. 

You may have challenges due to what happened on the road to this journey's end as much as throughout your life.

Whatever your location in your life's journey, always believe:

You have within you possibilities and opportunities. 

It may not seem like you do because of where you are in the "evolving" process, but if you have your health, if you have self determination, you have the ways and the means -- you simply need to realize what they are and where they are.

Widowhood includes the chrysalis you spin around yourself.

The person who emerges from the time spent inside this "jello", emerging from it eventually, is the amazing butterfly with wings and beauty and purpose. 

Recognize it, realize it, rejoice in it.