The Interrupted Life VIII – A War Widow by Eleanor Shepherd

This month I want to share the story of my friend, Luce in her own words. 

Eleanor: What event interrupted your life? 

Luce:  It was the war in Yugoslavia in 1991 that triggered the huge losses that interrupted my life.

Eleanor:  What was your life like before this event?  

Luce:  In June 1991, I celebrated eight years of being happily married to a loving Yugoslav husband.

I was 25 and living a life filled with culture, music, arts, knitting with my older female friends, and singing duets with my husband at special events. 

 Although trained as a translator, my husband requested I not work. So I was a happy housewife, living in my beautiful house, driving Yugoslav girlfriends around in my new Cadillac. I volunteered weekly in hospitals and senior homes using my language skills. 

Eleanor:  What was the most important thing about your life at that time? 

Luce:  Pleasing my hard-working husband: he was “my everything”, and his income ensured that we had no financial worries.I wanted to be “as Yugoslav as I can be” to make him proud. 

Eleanor:  What were your dreams? 

Luce:  I had no great ambitions but to be a good wife, a good person. I wanted to start a family of my own. 

Eleanor:  What had you accomplished? 

Luce:  Coming from a very poor and mainly uneducated family and neighbourhood, I was very proud to be the only one in my family who had gone to the great, inaccessible University. I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in translation. That was my greatest accomplishment.

I was proud of my courage to leave my country out of devotion to my husband, to live in

uncomfortable and unhygienic conditions in the mountains of Yugoslavia. I adapted to rural life, learning to care for cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. I adjusted to living without running water, washrooms, or electricity, and found I could still be happy!

  

Dark clouds came when things started to deteriorate in Kosovo. In the winter of 1989, everyone seemed convinced that war was coming. My husband decided we would be safer back in Canada.

Eleanor:  What were your fears? 

Luce: My husband was the youngest of a family of 13 children. Many were not fertile and I was afraid I would not be able to have a baby. Also a few family members were “not well in their heads.” Though they exhibited jealousy or suspicion or were depressed, they were always kind to me.

When Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, in June 1991, my husband foresaw civil war coming.

Eleanor:  Who were the most important people in your life? 

Luce: My husband, my family, and a few dear friends.

Eleanor:   Describe your two most important relationships at the time. 

Luce:  My relationship with my husband was the most important: we were kind of in a symbiosis. 

Also I had a very close  friend, Slobodanka (45 years old at the time), who was like my “Yugoslav mother”. She taught me so much, we spent so much time together, she was my “role model” of the perfect housewife.

Eleanor:  Were you a person of faith at the time? 

Luce: Yes, as a Catholic, I did believe in God as the Creator. I knew Jesus as a “character” in the Bible, but had no real concept of the Holy Spirit. 

Eleanor:  What did your faith look like?  

Luce: I knew by memory all my Catholic “poems/prayer” but I did not know how to really talk with Jesus and God.I did not rely on God but on my husband.

Eleanor:  Describe the event that interrupted your life?  

Luce:  On November 29^th1991, my husband was suddenly struck by a terrible schizophrenic psychosis and ended up in the Douglas Hospital.

I had seen him in the morning, he seemed okay. I kissed him goodbye and never saw him again.

Eleanor:   Did the trauma happen all at once of was it gradual? 

Luce:  Shortly after Croatia’s declaration of independence, in June 1991, my husband’s joy and energy began slowly fading away. He became suspicious of our Yugoslav friends, particularly Muslims and Croatians, as he was Serbian.

He started demanding we cut our relationships with people. He brought a bodyguard into our house. He slept with a knife under his pillow.

In disbelief, I hoped this was just some type of temporary depression.

On November 29^th, when I spoke on the phone with the Douglas Hospital psychiatrist, I was informed that this type of schizophrenic psychosis was irreversible. I had lost my husband forever.

The doctor told me to consider myself a widow,“You should pack up your things, and go on with your life.  

Eleanor:  How did you feel? 

Luce:  I was devastated! I was in denial. I was lost! The man I married was someone I did not know! 

Eleanor:  How did you react? 

Luce: I lost myself in action. I could not stay in the home I shared with my husband. I grabbed garbage bags, threw in my clothes and personal belongings and left. 

Subsequently, I faced death threats and suffered a physical attack from a brother-in-law. Shortly after, in despair and sadness, I fell into the arms of a “new friend;” and found out I was pregnant two months later. Not knowing who was the father, I made the tough decision to end my pregnancy, and suffered the physical and emotional consequences of that abortion.             

Eleanor’s Conclusion: 

            Were you to meet Luce today you would encounter a beautiful woman of grace who exudes love. The interruption of becoming a war widow eventually led her into a deep experience of faith. That is a story for later.

Word Guild Award
2018

Word Guild Award
2011

Word Guild Award
2009

Eleanor Shepherd from Pointe Claire, Quebec has more than 100 articles published in Canada, France, the U.S.A., Belgium, Switzerland and New Zealand. Thirty years with The Salvation Army in Canada and France including ministry in Africa, Europe, Haiti and the Caribbean furnished material for her Award winning book, More Questions than Answers, Sharing Faith by Listening as well as her Award winning stories in Hot Apple Cider and Christmas with Hot Apple Cider. She co-authored with her husband Glen the Bible Study book Why? Families. As well as writing, she conducts workshops on listening skills and prayer. Eleanor recently retired from being the pastor of an English speaking congregation in Montreal with The Salvaton Army. She is currently pursuing studies to become a Prayer Companion.