How do you comfort a grieving widow?

My ex-officemate lost her husband a few months ago. I wouldn’t say that we were close since we belonged to different teams and we only got to know each other when we spent a short time together in the US on different assignments. But in that short time, I knew that she’s a nice person. After that we got to chat occasionally and more frequently when Jor and I were set to start from scratch in Singapore because I kept asking her a lot of questions . It was only after a few days that her husband passed away that I was informed about it by other ex-officemates, more like an after thought. And it was understandable given that no one would really put me and her in the same thought sequence.

A few days before I learned about her loss I was reading her blog about watching her kid in a play and she seemed very happy and content.
But when another ex-officemate told me that her husband passed away, I was trying hard not to cry while I was on the phone with her. She would’ve been weirded out if I did.

At the wake I was all teary-eyed even if I didn’t want to cry because I didn’t even know her husband. I never met him. Besides the widow wasn’t crying and people might think I was a hired crying lady.

I feel like crying everytime I think about how much pain she must be going through. She’ll be living through my worst fear. During the wake I told her to be strong - if not for her own sake, for her kids. Because if I were in her shoes, it’s probably the one thing I’m gonna need most - the strength, the will to continue on with life when the person who completes you has passed away. I want to comfort her but I’m not sure if there’s really anything you can say that will help. I wouldn’t know exactly what she’s going through. But I can imagine it would be living like a robot - you’ve lost motivation, there’s always a void inside you, a sense of emptiness, and during times when you don’t feel the emptiness, you feel sorrow and you don’t know which is better but despite it you know you need to keep living or at least exist for your kids. In your mind, you know you need to move on. Everybody else seemed to have moved on. You know what to do but you can’t change the way that you feel.

And as if it wasn’t bad enough, Christmas is just around the corner.

Ughh… it’s just really sad but it nice to know that she’s holding out hope that things are going to get better. Her husband will be with her through her kids. I hope this Christmas she finds peace and happiness and get a sense of normalcy again.

Update:
A few hours after I published this entry, my ex-officemate sent me a text asking if I wanted to meet for breakfast with our other ex-officemates. Talk about coincidence.

We had a nice breakfast at the botanical gardens. I’m glad she and her kids are doing good.