I joke that this blog should really be called “Fearful Widow” but I couldn’t seriously call it that and instead named it Fearless Widow in hopes that it would be a self fulfilling prophecy.   You know how your thoughts become your reality type thinking.   I’m thankfully not nearly as fearful as I used to be and like I’ve said in previous posts I really feel like I’m turning a corner in this whole grief process.

When Brian died by unexpected suicide the fear was earth shattering to my little world.     Fears on so many different levels.    We had been together for almost 15 years and had made future plans.   All of a sudden the future I thought I was going to have was stripped from me and my mind was always reeling with worries and fears.   Initially it was fears about money and making my will, etc.    I was, and still am, terribly afraid of something happening to me.   If I get sick or die in an accident then my children will be orphans.    I had to decide who my kids would go to in case that ever happened.    Once I’m remarried that fear should lessen.   A little.    So now I find that I’m sometimes a hypochondriac.    The littlest thing may make me google the symptoms to make sure I’m not dying.    Luckily I don’t run to the doctor all the time and I’m healthy but we all know how that could change at any moment.

Being a widowed mother is terrifying.   Strong word I know but now the responsibility to raise good kids is all on me.     What if I fail them?   What if I make bad choices?   Thankfully Mark has been a strong influence and father figure in their lives but we are still in dating mode and ultimately I am responsible for raising them.   That’s a lot of pressure in these times.   Hell, it’s a lot of pressure to raise kids in general in today’s world.    I have worried a lot about my relationship with Mark not working out and then being left yet again and breaking my kids hearts in the process but through lots of therapy think I finally believe that no matter what else life is going to throw at me I will survive.   It’s not going to break me.   I can’t run from love for fear of hurting again you know.

For the first four years after his death I just tried to cover up the fear.    Everyone always says how strong I am but that’s just the face you have to put on to the world, to my children.   Oh and they know I get afraid.    Since the beginning when I might have had a breakdown out of nowhere or they caught me hiding in my closet my son has told me we’ll be okay or he’ll be the one to remind me that dad wanted me to go forward and find love.     We became TeamKolb when Brian died.   The three of us against the world in our little cocoon.   They have had to grow up a little earlier, especially Hayden, and we are super close because of our shared tragedy.

One of the dreams that Brian and I had was to one day get an RV.    We were even looking at used RV’s online in the months before his death.   We couldn’t afford it but he was thinking of using his annual bonus toward it (and a treadmill). 🙂    So, a year and a half after he died I rented an RV and took a three week trip to Yellowstone.    My family was afraid for me and I was scared to death when I first pulled out of that lot but the trip was a huge success and I caught the RV bug bad.     I was proud for planning that trip and doing it all myself.  I felt empowered.   People were always surprised when they realized it was just me and two young kids on that trip.

Last summer I decided to rent another 32′ RV and drive to Yosemite from Kansas which is A LOT of driving by myself.   The first part of the trip was great and then when we were about 30 minutes from Yosemite my two GPS’s took me down a road that wasn’t meant for big rigs.   There was a sign that said “road narrows” and not for trailers but I guess I didn’t think I was a big trailer and I followed it anyway.  Mistake.  Huge mistake.   It was a four mile, very crooked, narrow road to get down to the main road.  Lots of hair pin turns on a road that was 10′ feet wide.   As wide as my RV.  With rocks from the side of the mountain jutting out into the road on one side and a steep drop-off down to the river below on the other side.   I had only gone a short distance when I realized I shouldn’t have taken that route but you can’t really back an RV up on a twisty road so I thought I had to power through.     Old Ward Ferry Road is an old mining road and now just used by locals and rafters.    At one point a car came the other direction and he had to back up quite a way until there was a very small turnout that he could get around me.   He wasn’t happy with me and I was shaking so hard I could barely drive.     Then the road turned into graffiti and there were things painted on the road before me like “you are going to die”, “turn around”, etc.    My kids were freaking out at this point.    I came to a bridge and it was nearly a 90 degree turn and of course I was 32′ long so I hit the bridge and the steps going into the coach were ripped out and up so that you could see a foot of ground through the floor of the RV,  steps were dragging on the ground and I blew out a tire.     A woman who had lived in the area for 13 years but only taken the road twice before was behind me.    She said she had gotten off work early and decided to go this route at the last minute.    First guardian angel.   She helped me park the RV in a tiny spot at the end of the bridge and very small cars had just enough space to get by it.

This is Old Ward Ferry Road   And no I didn’t take this, it’s from Google. I was too terrified

There was no cell signal so we grabbed ourselves and my purse and she took us down to town and dropped us at a hotel.   Groveland, Ca is a small, quaint town and it was Friday night.    There were no hotels available.    I didn’t know what to do but a super nice hotel clerk called the campground we were supposed to be checking into and they said they could give us a bunkhouse for the night.   There are no taxi’s or uber’s in Groveland and the campground was a good 30 minutes away so she talked an owner of a local bed and breakfast into driving us there.  She and her family turned out to be our lifesavers.      We got to that campground after dark and they took us to the bunkhouse.    That’s when my fear was really overcoming me.     I was alone on the other side of the country with my two young children that I had gotten into this mess, no cell service and no idea what was going to happen to us or the RV.   Needless to say I didn’t sleep at all that night and in the morning we again got a ride to town and tried to eat breakfast but I couldn’t eat.    The family that owned the bed and breakfast had a room available so we stayed there and the father was a former engineer so he agreed to go up the mountain and retrieve the RV since a tow truck couldn’t get up there.   He hoisted the steps off the road with a pulley system and very, very slowly drove it down the mountain.   I was so traumatized that I couldn’t ride in it with him.   That same weekend I learned my debit card had been compromised and they cancelled it and I didn’t have much available funds at all on my credit card so Mark swooped in (when I could get a signal) and put money into my account.   I really don’t know what I would have done without him.   Begged family to wire me money I suppose.

Long story short, we were without the RV for 4 nights and finally managed to get it fixed and were on our way.    Lots of people were placed in our path and helped us through that.   I call them guardian angels.     I heard that lots of people have gone down that road that shouldn’t have and that there are even cars off the side that you can look back up at.   That night alone in the bunkhouse was the most scared I’ve been in my entire life.   No phone signal, no idea what we were going to do and no spouse/partner to plan with.   I broke down when I talked to Mark the next morning because he was so far away and there was really nothing he could do.

We continued our trip and made it home and I thought it was a memory behind me but my anxiety and panic issue started getting really bad last summer and fall and when I went back to my therapist she pinpointed that it was the RV trip that pushed me over the edge.    It brought up my trauma, my fear of making bad choices and of failing my children and not protecting them.   I didn’t even realize it until we looked at a timeline of my emotions.

Anyway, I got help and my anxiety has gone from a 10+ to maybe a 1 or 2 now.    I feel like a different person.

I know fear is not gone from my life but at least I was able to go through another trauma and now I realize that I did get us through it.  I actually did protect my children.  I survived.

I am planning another RV trip this summer but this time only to Arkansas and Branson.    I also have an RV GPS.   Haha

Like I said, I can’t hide away from love and I can’t hide away from my RV dreams.