My New Life as a Widow/My Entry in Prepping

When my first husband died in 2011, we had been married for nearly 19 years. He—a Boomer—was not quite ready for me. I was a typical Gen X’er, sarcastic, nihilistic, independent, and already jaded before I hit 20 years old. He was 11 years older than me, and I represented the fire and passion of his youth. He brought calm, stability, and insight that made me a much better person for having been his wife.

He was an Army Vet, a former black belt, and a McGuyver type who could generate electricity with two peanuts, a bread tie, and a flashlight. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but it seemed he would make it happen if you needed something or needed something done. He could do it correctly or, if it was an emergency, jerry-rig it to get it to go in a pinch. He always had a knife in his belt, a mini-flashlight, a pen, a handkerchief, and the extra key. He could fix anything. AND he was a computer tech. When my computer gave me The Blue Screen of Death, his first question was, “Did you save the last thing you worked on?” Of course, the answer was “no”. He would shrug, let me pout, and fix it. He was a kind but stoic man who felt and cared deeply. He taught me persistence, to look before I leaped, and to always do the right thing with the right attitude and intention.

How does this relate to my prepping story? As I mentioned, he always had the things you needed you didn’t think to have on you. I never had a pen, an extra key, or carried a knife. Now I do. I used to be edgy and confrontational. He taught me not only could that be dangerous for me since I did not know self-defense or carried a weapon at that time, but it generally did not bring me the results I wanted. So I try to listen more than I speak (still working on that) and practice self-control so I am not so easily triggered and enter a situation where my mouth writes a check my butt can’t cover. In these times when people die in road rage incidents and mouth off and get shot, his belief in self-control had a profound effect on me.

After his death, I knew I needed to move. I could no longer afford to stay in New York, and at 42, a house full of stuff and two dogs with a total weight of nearly 200 pounds, moving in with my Mom and stepdad was not something I thought would work. I felt that I was inflicting too much on them when they should be enjoying their Golden Years.

So I packed up my life and moved to Georgia. My Dad, who moved to Atlanta in the ’70s, was an incredible support system and lived 15 minutes away. After living with my family until I was 19, meeting and marrying my husband, and moving in with him, this move was a huge adjustment for me. This was the first time that I had my own place and lived alone.

Water was still my first significant prep. Believe it or not, New York tap water is renowned for its quality and taste*. Georgia, on the other hand, where you would think the water would be pure and fresh, is disgusting, and drinking it out of the tap, I was told, can make you sick. It smelled so bad I didn’t have to be told twice. I bought an extra filtered water pitcher as a pot filler and for the dogs’ water. Around this time I started hearing about how clean water is a finite resource, and with the aquifers being drained* (one video is provided below; there are other sources on this subject), climate change, and polluted fresh water, this would be a huge problem in the future.

I began to store water. I decided that no matter what, my dogs and I would never be without water, and now I had a place to store it.

So I did. And you should be storing water, too! Did you know that you can live longer without food than water?* While food is necessary, water is needed not only to drink (for you and your pets) but for cooking, rinsing, and washing. If you have limited storage space, consider dividing that space to accommodate water storage. You can get water in packets, which take up less space than bottles, and is less cumbersome to carry, and are convenient when traveling. You can also utilize “dead” space, such as on the refrigerator and under your sink(s) to store liters of water.

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