Helping the “Other” Casualties of War: 5 Questions for American Widow Project Founder Taryn Davis
October 14th, 2010
Since the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, more than 5,600 American military personnel have been killed, leaving behind grieving spouses, children, parents, partners, other extended family members, and friends. No support group existed for spouses of servicemen, so Taryn Davis founded one. Taryn serves as executive director of the American Widow Project, an organization that promotes, military widow to military widow, healing through sharing stories, tears, and laughter. She founded the organization after her husband, Army Cpl. Michael W. Davis, was killed in Iraq by multiple roadside bombs in May 2007 .
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Britannica: Can you begin by describing the process by which you decided to found the American Widow Project and provide support for others who were coping with the loss of a spouse?
Davis: My life changed in ways that I really could have never imagined. It was eleven thirty at night when two men walked up to my patio and notified me that my husband, Corporal Michael Davis, wasn’t coming home. I had that Johnny Cash/June Carter ideal about our love so I thought I was going to die as soon as I heard them say Michael’s name; it was surreal. Within twenty-four hours, I was sitting in my living room picking out an urn for his ashes, writing his eulogy and obituary. I think there is stigma and a connotation when you hear the word “widow,” you think of an old woman knitting in black. You certainly don’t think of a 21-year-old who is attending college. I Googled “widow” and the response was, ‘do you mean “window”? That’s when it hit me that this was a title that not a lot of people spoke about and that more people needed to learn about.
I wanted to seek out others in my situation and that’s when the birth of the American Widow Project came to be.
Britannica: What types of support does the American Widow Project provide?
Davis: I knew I needed to have another portal for widows to share their stories and for others to heal from those stories. That’s when I decided to start the American Widow Project. Each of these widows involved with the AWP has helped pour a symbolic slab to build an amazing house where other women can go and feel normal. We don’t have seminars and it’s not a classroom setting. I realized early on that the only way I could survive was if I learned how to live again, and I knew I couldn’t learn how to live again sitting at a table. I wanted to go out and feel the wind against my face and laugh and smile and not feel bad about it because if I paused for a moment I would look around and see twelve to fifteen other widows doing the same thing. That’s really what the organization has become through the website, hotline, our events, and our outreach. The widows involved in this project are more amazing than I could have ever fathomed.
Fifty years from now if I’m not here, I hope the American Widow Project will still be here and that people will think of it as an organization that isn’t going to tell you how to grieve or how to cry. It’s going to tell you how to live and let you understand that there are many others out there carrying on the legacy of a hero while also trying to learn how to get up every morning and breathe and love life.
If there’s a military widow out there we’d want her to know that she’s not alone. I felt alone for four months, my best friend felt alone for two years, and I just met a widow who didn’t meet another military widow for five years!
At one of our events, a widow put it perfectly when she said, “I don’t feel like I came here and made twelve friends. I feel like I made 24 friends because I feel like I know your husbands as well.”
Britannica: You noted in an earlier NPR interview that some military families avoided contact with widows of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, ostensibly because it brought too close to home the dangers that their spouses, fathers, and mothers faced. Can you describe briefly some of the ways in which this manifested itself and how it affected you personally as well as those widows with whom you’ve come into contact?
After our spouses are killed, some military wives avoid us as if we have the plague. We are a living representative of their worst nightmare, and for some, avoiding us (widows) is their reaction to our loss.
I personally dealt with this, and it’s been in proving to myself that I am more than the sum of my tragedy, that has allowed those that one shied away, to reach back out.
Britannica: The stories are posted on the American Widow Project’s Web site are heart-wrenching, the themes of loss and isolation—as well as how to move forward—running through them. One set of stories, about children, is particularly poignant. If you could boil it down to two or three most important pieces of advice that you would like to pass along to other widows who might face a similar situation, whether they be the spouse of a soldier, a firefighter, a police officer, or anyone else who puts themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis for others, what would they be?
Davis: I would urge them to reach out and connect with others who know their loss. When I made those connections with these widows, it helped me feel normal. When you’re with them, you don’t have to sugar-coat things or feel obligated to have to leave your husband’s name out of a sentence because you know it makes people feel awkward. You are free to be yourself and it’s very liberating. Even when you’re not around the other widows, you start to feel more empowered to say to the world, ‘I’m a widow and I’m surviving. Life can be good. Just because my husband was killed in a really horrible way, that doesn’t define his life or mine. He was so much more than a man in a uniform.’ I hope to be a living example of what Michael instilled in me. I don’t know what my life would be if I didn’t talk to a widow every day. I’m so grateful that they’re in my life. They’ve taught me that love is eternal and that life can be amazing.
Also, follow your heart. Many people will try and give you “advice” or tell you what to do with the shattered pieces of your life. Do what feels right for you. There is no right or wrong way to grieve or heal. You create your path of healing and deep down, beneath the pain and grief, you will find the answers.
Britannica: How have your views on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the U.S. military been affected by your efforts?
Davis: The only thing I can say about the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and my view of the U.S. military is that I support the troops and their families and hope the losses of our soldiers are never forgotten. My organization has definitely heightened my awareness of the sacrifices that are made not only by the soldiers, but also by their families back home.