Think of a pro and con list for yourself. You can usually outweigh the cons by the pros. I’m at a stalemate. We’re 50/50 and there is no shifting either way.

Right now, I am very lucky to be able to say that I live in two countries. If I chose to, I could go between them as and when I pleased because I have a home in Alberta, and a home in Manchester, Both places contain our belongings. The things that make it ours. Here’s my dilemma.

I have Manchester. The place where I grew up with the most amazing family ( I know we all say we had the best one, but mine was the best-sorry not sorry ) The place where I met lifelong friends in school and still have today. The place where I met my husband. The place where I got married. The place we bought our first home.

I have Edmonton. The place where we decided to live.To explore new opportunities. The place we purchased a new home. The place we found new friends who became our second family. The place where we developed as people, as a couple, as parents. The place where he died. The place where the city took us into their hearts. The place where they deemed him a hero.

Once Dan had died, I was adamant that I would remain in Edmonton. Possibly to the point of seeming selfish and hurtful to my family. I was going to prove that I could do this. That I could survive in a country that I sometimes struggled to be so far away in. I had often said that I would go back to Manchester should something happen to Dan and as soon as it did, I wanted no part of that. I was staying put. After all, that’s what people expected me to do wasn’t it? Jump on a plane back home. Nope. At the time, it felt like I would be burying my head in the sand by doing that. I would prove them wrong. Show them all I could do this. That I could make my own choices. By staying, I would be showing my loyalty to the city. Showing them that I was grateful for all their love and unwavering support. That I was strong. A force to be reckoned with.

I had my team rallying around me. My ladies. Ladies who dropped everything to help the boys and I with anything and everything we needed. They are my family and my lifelong friends.

There was something wrong though. I needed something else. Honestly, it hit me like a tidal wave. I needed family. My family. I needed to be Claire. Not “Constable Dan Woodall’s Widow, Claire” or “The wife of the fallen Police Officer, Claire Woodall”… just simply. Claire.

As much as I was loved and supported publicly, it was this publicity that seemed to stop me from moving forward. I didn’t want to lose my past, but I couldn’t see my future. I understand why I was referred in that manner. That’s how people knew me. As the widow that had the two young boys. I needed that-for want of a better term-tagline, to fade. To be myself. To begin new relationships. I’m certain that Dan would want me to move on. To have another male figure in the boys’ lives and provide them with the tools for their life to come. To learn right from wrong and do all the things that I can’t.

Now, after 18 months, I have come back to Manchester. Back to the motherland. Things are different here, but so very much the same. Doesn’t make sense really does it. In some ways, I feel like I never left. All the roads are the same. All the houses look the same. The schools look the same. Yes, there are some new buildings, houses where it used to be green space, but 99.9% of my hometown hasn’t changed. I kinda like that.

The boys get to experience family all around them. Grandparents living a street away. Other Grandparents,cousins, Aunts, Uncles..All within a fifteen minute car ride. The boys go to school and wear a uniform. A school that I also went to as a child. That has the same colours-and the same style tie-it had when I was there. The school is small and has 240 children in total and goes from aged 3-11. A far cry from the 1100 strong school they came from with children from aged 6-15. In their current school here alone, they have 6 cousins. Something they have never experienced. It was so overwhelming and confusing for them, they would point to random children and ask if that person was their cousin. In the time that we have been here,the boys have been to a family gathering that filled a very large function room and been completely overwhelmed by the amount of people that are “their family”. It is a completely different world and it’s amazing to see them experience family the way that I did.

For me? It’s just like old times. Which is brilliant and frightening.  Brilliant because I am building a new relationship with all these people I was once so close to. And for some of them, getting closer to them than I ever was. It’s a great feeling. Frightening because this time around I am here on my own. On my own with two children when everyone else around me, all the cousins I grew up with, are in their relationships. Last time, it was me in the marriage and most others were single. Now I feel like I have gone back to a time when I was single but they have moved on. And why shouldn’t they move on and have babies and get married. It’s not their fault I’m a widow.

That anonymity I was talking about? I miss it a little. It was something I could hide behind. Something I knew people were aware of. It gave me a security. Simple things like going out to a bar and I could feel safe- safe that people would know that I’m single for a reason. That I wasn’t unlovable. I hadn’t divorced. There was nothing “wrong” with me. It made me curious as to why I actually began to feel like that. I have plenty of friends who are single, have divorced, are married.. there is nothing wrong with them. So why, now that I am here, do I feel like I need a sign on my forehead in big neon letters saying Widow-not unlovable. 

So, you see my dilemma. I feel like I belong in both places. I have reasons to stay in both places. At some point, I will have to decide where I make my base. As it stands right now, I have no idea where that will be. Or maybe I do and I don’t want to admit it? I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever will.

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