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A Widow’s New Address Book


There is a saying over at the YWBB that widowhood rewrites your address book. It’s based on the very real fact that many of the family and friends you thought you could count on to be there for you when tragedy strikes will not be.  Or at least they will not be there in the ways you want, expect or need, and very often these people who meant so much to you disappear from your life completely.  Sometimes this happens gradually, and other times it seems to transpire overnight, but they go and usually never come back.

Widows love to indulge in the outrage of this.  It’s wonderfully cathartic to spew venom at those people we loved and needed whom abandoned us in our most wretched hour.  What we don’t do, nor do we want to hear, is acknowledge that often we play a role in our own abandonment.  What’s that howling?  It’s the shrieking of outraged widowed people undoubtedly.  However, I just can’t buy into the idea that we are entirely innocent victims anymore, and the reason is that I know better.  The tendency to push people away by not asking for help, by not answering the phone or letters or email, by not returning calls, or by not accepting invitations, all in the name of grieving is a pretty strong one that is not helped by the idea that is propagated among the grieving that anything done in the name of mourning is okay.  While conversing anything someone else does while caught in the same grief or simply in the ripples of our grief is heinous.  I am being over-simplistic but, in hindsight, I realize now that being widowed was not a pass for me.  I still had a level of responsibility in my relationships, great and small, that my hurting state didn’t excuse.  And I know grieving has to be done.  It just wasn’t meant to be a part-time profession or even a hobby.  We are the masters of our lives, actions and reactions, and if we emerge from the black crepe days friendless – we should take a closer look at the fingers pointing back at us rather than exhausting too much energy calling attention to those at the end of the one finger pointing out.

This last Christmas Rob and I sent out one of those obnoxious holiday chain letters.  The “hey, this is my wonderful year and family” kind of missive that makes most people wish they’d been sent fruitcake instead.  I tried to be as low-key Sgt. Friday (“just the facts, ma’am”) as possible and then decided that I would send it to just about everyone in my address book, including those people I hadn’t heard from since before Will died – and even further back than that in a couple of instances.  Why?  Because some of the reason I had this address book chock full of phantom numbers, addresses and emails was due to my own lack of initiative.  I simply let some of these people slip away through lack of attention.  I didn’t call or write or email, so what did I think would happen?  Why did I expect them to carry the relationship?  One of the worst things I ever learned as a widow was that anything I had to do to survive was okay.  It was an effort to call or write for a lot of reasons, so I didn’t.

One friend called regularly in the early months of Will’s illness.  She really was in over her depth and I think a bit frightened because when a close friend’s husband is really dying, it brings too many scary thoughts about your own world and – what if – into play.  I have to admit it was hard to just talk about nothing in those days and anything that was immediate to Will and what the hell I was going to do now (aside from teaching) was immaterial to me.  She tried to carry on our phone conversations as though nothing had changed.  Eventually, I screened her calls and stopped returning them.  What I should have done was been honest and said, “I appreciate what you are trying to do but I need to talk about me and Will and our options because talking through them helps me think and focus.  I don’t need forever to do this, but I do need right now.  Can you just listen to me?”  I was afraid I would hurt her feelings, so I ducked her.  She got the hint and took to calling every couple of months and as time stretched it become every six months.  I resented the calls.  I felt they were burdens.  What was really going on was that I knew I was being rotten and resented her reminding me of it.

She was hardly the only one.  I pulled away from many people.  And then I wondered why no one helped.  Of course, the reality was that I needed far too much help and people were as frightened by this as I was.  I blamed them and I shouldn’t have.  My reality was that I was too far from my own family and stuck with in-laws whose family dynamics left them poor substitutes.  I could have remedied some of this had I taken control and focused my efforts out but being raised to care-take and be “the strong one” my instincts took over and I did much of everything myself.  I was fortunate that a few of my friends and family pushed and insisted on helping, but I could have done a better job.

This friend was one of the recipients of the Obnoxious Christmas Letter back in December.  I got an email from her today thanking me for the pictures of Katy, reminding me that she had tried to stay in touch and could we not let so much time go by again?  I wrote her back and agreed.

When we are in crisis we expect so much and never stop to think that the people we are expecting things from are being tested too and that often they will not be capable of meeting the demands.  We will encounter worthless souls who slink off or implode or explode all over us and then leave, but it’s our reaction only that we have control over.  Most people in our lives are good people who are just as lost as we are in a tragedy.  We should be more accepting. Our address books are ours to write and no one else’s.

‘Morning Lover


Back in our LDR days, Rob always wrote me a morning greeting email which, if I wasn’t too impatient and peeked for the night before (I was up late, late in those days with insomnia), I would find first thing when I logged onto my computer at work. There was always an endearing greeting and though some people pooh-pooh email as inferior to real pen and paper letters, I have saved every email that Rob has every penned to me, and they are as dear on the screen as any letter in my hand could be. 

We hardly email each other these days. Now that we are physically together, our mode of communication has switched to a phone call in the afternoon and, of course, we eat lunch together nearly every day. Still I love getting an email from him out of the blue like the one I got a few Wednesday’s ago. 

‘Morning Lover is how it began and though it was only a link to a powerpoint on asthma, it reminded me of what were essentially our “courting days” of yore. Only we were already engaged and yore was just a year ago. It seems to me though that I have known Rob forever. That he has been a missing person in my life – all my life – and these little missives are just one of the many small ties that bind us now as they did in some other time I can’t quite remember but know existed.

Rob’s greeting of a year ago today was “Simply and plainly. I love you.” He went on to compliment a recent blog piece I’d written and tell me that I was talented and how much he loved being my muse (and he was and still is beyond all other people or influences to a point that astounds me daily). Then he gave me a list of quotes because back in the .Mac blog days I always tried to have an inspirational quote to go along with my entry. I foolishly believed I might be helping those at the YWBB who peeked at my blog. I am past the idea that I did much good there (or much damage either) and believe that my stay there was orchestrated for Rob and I to reconnect, and for us to meet up with a select few people who would bless our lives with wisdom or encouragement. 

These mornings he greets me with kisses and nose rubs and his beautiful smile. His eyes are bright blue orbs that even the sky up here cannot match, and I love the way he looks at me in those first moments when I awake (because I seldom beat him to consciousness though when I do it’s a treat to watch him sleep).

I know it probably seems as if I spend an inordinate amount of blog space on my husband and how wonderful I think he is, but in my mind I have yet to write something that truly does him justice or describes perfectly the way I feel about him. So even though today isn’t an anniversary or an out of the ordinary day, I am going to take the time to say,

“Morning Lover.”

And be glad that I can.

The Hobbit’s Life for Me


An interesting post by a fellow writer, Damyanti, led to a blog piece about a man who has escaped the gerbil wheel of modern life to concentrate on himself and what he loves. Rob and I often discuss what it would take at minimum to have the kind of life that allowed us the freedoms to pursue what we loved and still keep a roof over our heads, food in our tummies and raise a child. We have dreams but the plan to the right path hasn’t quite materialized. Not yet anyway.

Where would you “run away” to if money were not the object?