Widow???

So I was playing around on my blog this morning trying to figure out a few things like how to customize my counter, why the new links I tried to install aren't showing up, when I read the title and description of my blog.
Good Grief is the title of a novel I'm reading about a young woman who is trying to deal with living after her husband passes from cancer. (That's right, I stole the title... Oh, well... you'll get over it.) Then I read the description of my blog, that I wrote myself, and yet was shocked by...... a young Christian WIDOW??? The word pierced through me. I don't feel like a widow! Widows are little old ladies you see at church sitting in the same pew every Sunday, missing their husbands ~ the father of their adult children and grandfather of their 9 grandkids, the man they were married to for over forty years... Not a 28 year old with so much of her life still ahead of her!
I still remember the first time that word slapped me in the face. I was sitting in a doctor's office 2 weeks after the accident waiting for what seemed like hours and filling out the "War and Peace" version of the patient info, when I came to the all important check off of marital status. ~~~ I recall the first time that I was able to check MARRIED!!! I wanted to stand up and shout "Hey, everybody! Look at me! I get to check married on this form. Me! The one that was told she'd never find anyone to love her just the way she is. Me! I'm joyously married to the man of my dreams! NaNaNuNaNa!" (Insert smartypants tongue stick out here) ~~~ This time I did not want to stand up and shout. This time I wanted to shrivel into my seat ~ find a hole and crawl into it. I started to tear up. I realized for the first time that from now on, everytime I filled out a medical form, job application, or church attendance card I had to admit to the vulnerability of being a widow, a single again.
I hate that word! Widow. What kind of word is that anyway? When I was younger I'd here that word and think of venemous spiders and mean little old blue hairs and people that had nothing to do with me. But the last few years I've been surrounded by it. All three of my dad's sisters are widows, both of my grandmothers, my dad is a widower, and now in my twenties I'm staring it in the face. I hate that word, and yet feel a need to embrace it. How do you embrace something so painful?
I struggle with my new found status. Anyone close to me knows the battles I'm going through right now, but I'm determined. God didn't spare me from the accident for me to spend the rest of my life like I died that day. I'll be honest. Sometimes I feel like my heart died that day and there have been days I wish I had, but I must keep on living -- not just existing but living. How do I do that? How?

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post.