Not Rod's Wife Anymore

As a little girl growing up in the 1960s, my role in life was pretty much set for me. Sure, there was room for some variation, but the cultural norms dictated that I would graduate high school, go to college, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after.

I followed the script and it suited me well; I loved being Wife. Wife was how I interfaced with my world and everyone in it. It was how I knew who I was; it defined my responsibilities in the home, my place in the world, and my purpose in life.

Over time, that role had become my whole identity. They merged into a single thing that became Rod’s Wife.

​I liked Rod’s Wife, and I liked being her. She was who Rod loved, and who he built his life and future with. Rod’s Wife was protected and provided for. She felt safe, and knew she would be loved forever.

And then Rod died.

In that moment, Rod’s Wife died, too. I knew this cognitively, but I didn't experience it yet. I was not prepared to.

A few months after Rod died, a long time friend of ours told me that I’d have to figure out who Gail Bayron was apart from being Mrs. Rodney Bayron. At the time, I just wanted to slap her face right off her head. How dare she imply that I am not Rod’s Wife any more! If I’m not Rod’s Wife, then I am no one.

Rod and I were high school sweethearts and married not long after graduation; I literally moved from my parent’s house to my husband’s house. I never had the need (or opportunity) to discover who I was between being Bob’s Daughter and Rod’s Wife. Because of this, I had no point of reference to go back to, no previous identity or former life to give me context for who I was by myself. My whole life I have been someone else’s someone, so I decided I would just continue to be Rod’s Wife. I had to. It was the only way I knew to exist.

I figured I could hold on to Rod’s Wife a little longer if I could follow through on some of the plans we made together, to keep to the plans we had already set in motion.

To that end, I went on the mission trip to Israel just as we had planned, leaving just ten days after Rod died. He had been so looking forward to this trip - there was so much he wanted to see. I couldn’t not go. I had to go for him.

In our retirement years, Rod was going to have a voice-over business, and I was going to interpret for the Deaf. We would accept contracts and assignments at our leisure, choosing jobs because we wanted to, or turning them down if for no other reason than we didn’t want to.

There were other plans we had made together that I dutifully carried out as Rod’s Wife best I could, but eventually they were all completed or expired. Did this mean it was finally time to say good-bye to Rod’s Wife, and see who I would become - indeed was already becoming? It took me three years to even ask this question, to even consider the possibility that it was time to let her go.

That’s the thing about secondary losses. Each time you realize a loss or an end to something that you  shared, there’s one less thing in the world that he had a part in, that reflects the life you once knew. It’s like another piece of him falls away, taking with it another little piece of your heart.

During all this time, I was avoiding my new role: Widow.

I knew this was my new designation right from the beginning, but I had put it off as long as I could. This new role didn’t make me anybody’s anything, and I didn’t know what that was like. But it was time for me to step outside of Rod’s Wife and find out.