Widowhood Sucks: How the heck do I start this lawnmower?

......and a hundred and one other things that I never expected to have to learn.

I can picture the scene like it was yesterday. Rick, my husband, was watching CSI reruns sprawled on the bed and slowly drifting into a mid-afternoon nap. My youngest step-son came into the room, telling his dad he borrowed the neighbor's lawnmower to finish our yard because...... And that's where the memory ends. I have no clue to the rest of the conversation, or if I even remained in the room to hear it. Guy stuff. Lawnmowers. Motors. I tuned out, because I had no need to listen to this talk. I had a strong healthy husband and a houseful of stepsons. I didn't plan on doing any mowing myself, and didn't really care about the details as long as it was done.

Fast forward to this spring. I'm staring at this same lawnmower, trying in vain to recall the rest of that conversation. I recall bits and pieces of other conversations about starting the mower. Oil-gas ratio? Guyspeak I didn't understand and didn't care to. I've never started a lawnmower or mowed a yard in my life. I had a dad and brothers. Husbands. Sons.

Or I used to. Since that conversation last fall, I lost my dad to cancer in October. My husband died of a massive heart attack at work in February. And my stepsons moved out of town to their mother's house. My entire life has been turned upside down. And yet the grass still grows and I still don't know how to start the mower.

I've run into so many things that I wasn't prepared to deal with. We bought my dad's truck after he passed away. Rick and my mom went to transfer the title while I stayed home catching up on some work. He didn't put the new title in the file with the other titles. He didn't put it in the truck. Or his night stand. I'm sure it's someplace and I'll come across it someday, but in the meantime, I had to order a new title to transfer the truck into my name. I'm sure he would know right where it is. But he's not here to ask.

I've cried in frustration at a jar I couldn't open. I've supplied a huge chunk of the college fund for my mechanic's children. My 16 year old daughter and I, now the only ones living in a 5 bedroom house, have wandered the aisles of stores aimlessly for hours just to avoid coming home to this empty house.

Oh, and the lawnmower? It's still sitting on the back porch, unstarted, unused. I bought an old-fashioned push mower. The kind with no motor. No gas and oil to mix. I push and I sweat and I curse the unfairness of life and I gain strength and a sense of accomplishment and small amount of control over a life I never wanted to have to live.