young widowhood

Dan in Real Life: Our Friday Night Movie Pick


As many of you know, Rob and I frequently cuddle up in bed with his laptop and a DVD from our public library. The library has quite an impressive collection. We have seldom been unable to find a film that strikes our fancy and often we choose movies from the sneak peaks that are provided on the DVD’s we have seen.

Dan in Real Life though was something I read about on MSN. We are Steve Carell fans and investigate his movies even if we don’t end up checking them out of the library.

I warned Rob upfront that it was a chick flick and he lamented the fact that all the really funny actors eventually succumb to the dreaded genre. It wasn’t until he was firing up the computer and inserting the disc that I mentioned the storyline was that of a widower falling in love again.

“Just had to keep the streak alive, didn’t you?” was his arched eyebrow comment*.

The main character Dan, played by Carell, is an advice columnist on the verge of syndication and raising his three daughters somewhere in Jersey. During a trip to his family’s summer home for their annual get together, he meets a woman by chance in a bookstore and they click. However the woman turns out to be his brother’s new girlfriend. Romantic comedy ensues.

The supporting cast is great**. The subplots are humorous but realistic. Dan’s widowhood is central to the story, not in a “in your face way”, but merely as just another circumstance of his life that makes him who he is and explains the way he deals with many of the issues that come up.

And it made us laugh. Both of us. Despite the mediocre reviews the film got when it came out, it is worth a viewing in the privacy of one’s living room, den or bedroom – as is our wont mostly because of the lack of living room furniture thing.

Being widowed, I was especially touched by the tiny details. For example, the opening scene is early in the morning with the alarm going off. Dan reaches out to the empty side of the bed and you can see he is clearly lonely. The camera pulls back to reveal that his late wife’s side of the bed is made and covered with papers and books and whatnot. Another scene at his parent’s home finds Dan being set up for the stay in the laundry room. Rob thought that was funny until I pointed out that naturally he wouldn’t get a real bedroom like his married siblings. It’s not as if he had a wife to consider. And of course there is the constant but well-meaning advice of his parents and siblings to “get back out there already”***.

Of course movie nights mean being tired the next day. We always end up staying up way too late regardless of how early we get started. Isn’t that the way of “dates”?

Dan in Real Life is a good flick. You should give it a look if the opportunity presents.

*Anyone who has been reading here a while knows that Rob and I have a habit of picking/watching movies with death and widowhood themes even when we try not to pick them out.

**The brother is played by Dane Cook who is a comedian Rob often hears on XM and had been on that very day with a bit about his first blow-job and and car door handles. It’s here on YouTube.

***There is a great subplot with one of his teen daughters falling in love that is the perfect metaphor for the newly minted adult single back “out there”. The compare/contrast is great.

Mrs. Henderson Presents….


….breasts and strategically lighted, professionally groomed pudendum (or “pussy” if you prefer because apparently everyone doesn’t speak Latin).

I have never seen the film, 2005 was not a stellar year for me and movie-going, but I think Dame Judi Dench won an Oscar? Or perhaps just a nomination. In any event she was wonderful to watch and the scenes without her don’t sparkle nearly as much.

But I am a sucker for eccentric old lady movies, perhaps due to the fact that I fully intend to be one when the appropriate age presents itself.

In keeping with our near perfect tradition of choosing films where a character is widowed or experiences death in some other way, Mrs. Henderson opens with a funeral. Mrs. Henderson has been recently widowed.

And I thought – fuck me. Why am I plagued with blue-ray representatives of Queen Victoria at her blackest?

But you know what, that isn’t really true. I have yet to met an imaginary widow who doesn’t strive to break free of Lizzie’s misused rule book.

Mrs. Henderson did not disappoint.

Laura Henderson: [at Mrs. Henderson’s husband’s funeral] I’m bored with widowhood.*
Lady Conway: My dear, you’ve just scratched the surface. 
Laura Henderson: I have to smile at everybody. I’ve never had to smile at everybody. In India, there were always people to look down on. 
Lady Conway: People are merely being sympathetic. After all, you have lost your husband. 
Laura Henderson: Well I didn’t mislay him! It was most inconsiderate of Robert to die. What on earth am I supposed to do now? 

Lady Conway: It’s really not so bad. Widows are allowed hobbies. 
Laura Henderson: Hobbies? 
Lady Conway: Yes. Embroidery, things like that. 
Laura Henderson: Are you mad? 
Lady Conway: I’ve graduated to weaving. Would you care to see my tapestries? 
Laura Henderson: I’d rather drink ink. 
Lady Conway: Committees are good of course. I serve on quite a few charities. Once your husband dies, it’s quite permissible to help the poor. And now, there’s no one to stop you buying things. Also, of course, there’s a great deal of time for lovers. 
Laura Henderson: Margot, I’m nearly 70! 
Lady Conway: That’s true, but you’re also very rich. The one cancels out the other. 

Okay, widowhood is probably a lot different when you are not looking at decades of it but I have to admit I was long over widowhood itself within a very short span of time. Like Mrs. Henderson I wanted to do and grow and move on. Unlike her I didn’t have the money to buy a theater, so I blogged instead. There is something to be said for creative outlets.

Rob didn’t like the movie. He gave it a “meh”.

It is not quite a chick flick but veers dangerously.

Oh and there is nudity. Strategically lit and neatly trimmed.**

 

 

 

*Writing credits

(in alphabetical order)
David Rose   idea
Kathy Rose   idea
Martin Sherman   written by
**Boys and girls

Days of Remembrance


Today is the second anniversary of Shelley’s death. Two weeks ago MidKid was quizzing Rob about plans for the day and if I felt uncomfortable marking the anniversary. Like most people who haven’t lived this, she is curious about the effect that  “living in another woman’s shadow” has on me. After all I live in Shelley’s house. Sleep in her bed with her husband.

A more introspective person might have trouble with that.

It is a curious thing. I have spent more time in the past year and a half participating in the remembrances of Shelley and her departed loved ones than I have remembering my own late husband. In fact, as I thought more about it I realized I have devoted more time recently to memorializing people I don’t know than I have ever spent acknowledging the death anniversaries of members of my own family. Aside from having masses said, of course, we just didn’t count birthdays anymore or visit graves other than over the Memorial Day weekend. In fact aside from Will, I can’t even remember the specific dates anyone died, even those whose death had a great impact on me and my family.

What probably causes me the most discomfort is that fact that I don’t feel a ton of need to mark dates of death or anniversaries of birth, and so I am at a loss when others do feel the need.

Rob has spent the last several days telling Shelley’s story because he felt it was something he could do to mark the day.

Sometimes it seems very important to mark the day(s) but how to do it is not always as obvious.

Other widowed we know tell their stories. Some about the end. Some about the beginning.

I wonder what Shelley would think about it all. I sometimes think I know more about her than I do my own sisters but I haven’t any idea when it comes to this.

Will would be appalled.

Although I have written about his death, and I did that very early on, I plan to revisit it again only when I write my memoir this fall – and then never again from a specific detail point of view. Most of what I write/have written where grief and widowhood are concerned is about me and the experiences I had. And about moving on*.

Will’s story is his.

I don’t feel right about exposing him more than I already do to the world. He was a very private person. This blog for example would have made him very uncomfortable.

Sometimes – okay, all the time – I feel that the observations of other widowed and the omnipresent role that their deceased spouses take in their current lives is just proof of what a terrible person I am because Will has no role or place now. Often I don’t think about him or our life at all.

My last post about our wedding anniversary almost didn’t happen. The first version was a very angry diatribe about why I can’t romanticize the past and am much happier where I am than I have ever been in my whole life – thank you very much. I still feel defensive about being happy when so many people would go back in a heartbeat. But it’s ridiculous. My life is not open for debate, and I don’t need to feel bad for being where I want to be and happy about it.

The compromise post was just memories. Not great ones but they went with the soundtrack, and the song seemed appropriate to the event and how I feel about it. And most important, they are mine.

But I don’t know that I want to continue marking days**. In fact, I know I don’t. It feels like obligation*** rather than true sentiment.

Shelley died two years ago today.

I owe my happiness to her.

It’s not a comfortable thing to know, and I don’t know at all what it says about life or the universe or God or me.

*I hate the term “moving forward” but I adopted it when I was at the YWBB and posting because it was less incendiary, but what we do really is move on.

** I had already broached Rob with the idea that just he and the girls get together. I am not uncomfortable with gatherings but I am keenly aware that they hold back because BabyD is there and that I am not their mom.

*** Obligation is probably not the best word. I feel I need to be around for Rob. The girls are adults but we are all still children to our parents. I know in my twenties the fall back position when I was around my folks was effortless, and the girls need to be able to lean on Rob and express their grief. They are not as far in their journey as he is because kids of all ages grieve in spurts and in between the experiences that are transforming them.