SAN ANTONIO—As the death toll goes up, so too does the number of young, twenty-something widows.
“May 21, 2007, was like any other morning. I heard the ding ding of the instant messenger, ran to my computer, it was Michael,” Taryn Davis said.
Davis remembered her husband Michael, who was stationed in Iraq at the time, having to hang up abruptly.
To this day, she doesn’t know why, only that he went on an assignment from which he never returned.
“A man in the field detonated two explosions next to their vehicle and so Michael drove forward and as he drove forward, another 2,000 pounds of detonation went off underneath their vehicle, killing him,” Davis said.
It is a tragic, yet familiar story to so many young women in this country. “They come up and they say those words that are burned into every military wife’s mind. ‘The secretary of defense regrets to inform you,’” Davis said.
After giving the eulogy for her 22-year-old husband, Davis said there were days when she thought she might literally die from a broken heart.
Knowing she didn’t want to grieve alone, Davis reached out to another widow.
“I wanted to start a full out nonprofit organization that was candid and raw and most importantly that allowed these women to live,” Davis said.
With that thought and a lot of hard work, the American Widow Project was formed.
Every couple months, the women fly to a new destination with a new adventure in mind. They have gone sky-diving, surfing and horse-back riding.
Veteran and single mother Elizabeth Lewis said she has become more spontaneous, knowing life isn’t a guarantee.
Along with the great outdoor challenges, comes time to share and heal and laugh and cry. “We can actually say, I know how you feel,” Lewis said.
Davis said for her, each weekend presents an opportunity to feel and see that she is more than the sum of her grief.