widowhood rewrites your address book

Something in Common


Calhan, Colorado cemetery.

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I worked in five different schools over twenty years and so acquired a lot of work only friends. Though a handful of these people have stuck with me in various mediums, most of them have faded to “people I used to know” status, and I use the “know” in only the vaguest of ways. I wouldn’t claim to have really known any of them past their working face and am certain that street is a two-way.

Sis left a message on my FB page last night mentioning that a mutual work friend of the way back days of middle school yore was looking for me. The three of us taught together back in the late 80’s and early 90’s at one of the rough-and-tumbliest junior highs on Des Moines’ eastside. The poorest of the poor white trash attended this school. Kids who lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the State Fairgrounds and running along the banks of the river. Neighborhoods where the boarded up houses were inhabited by families who couldn’t afford to replace the windows when they were broken out by gunshots and where the city didn’t bother to pave the streets or install sidewalks.

I once drove a student to his home in one of these postapocalyptic looking neighborhoods and was sharply admonished by an older co-worker who told me in no uncertain terms that I was “never to drive down there alone again.”

I didn’t get warnings that stern when I drove through the “hood” on the North side and that was during the height of the gang wars*.

The friend in question eventually moved up the chain of command, I transferred away and so did she. I saw her occasionally at the yearly convention our district used to hold in the spring, but she became someone from my past. I invited her to the wedding when Will and I married, but she sent her regrets.  I think she sent a gift to the baby shower for Dee, but she’s never seen even a picture of Dee, let alone Dee herself.

The last time I ran into her was four years ago at the last high school where I taught. It was days until the end of school and I had resigned, getting ready to sell my house and move up to Canada.

She asked how I was.

Everyone asked, but those who hadn’t stayed in touch or contacted me in the aftermath of Will’s death always had this guilty air about them that I found exasperating. It’s not as if I thought the world revolved around me and was overly hurt about the lack of cards or emails when he died. I was more annoyed by the way they seemed to think they had some input into my life or pertinent advice to give me – because many of them did – and I wanted to remind them that they’d been absent too long for this to be the case. But I didn’t. In this instance though, she didn’t know Will had died, and that was always a treat – breaking the news to people who’d dropped off the radar after he got sick. Better was the twofer – Will died and oh, I’m getting remarried – she had quite the non-reaction to the first and a small stroke over the second.

Actually, a horror induced stroke because I was quitting my job, selling my house and moving to Canada to marry a guy I met on the Internet. To be precise about it.

She was not the first to question my judgment but was one of the few that didn’t get an earful of scorn and mind your own life while I – an adult with more than half a brain – mind my own, thank you.

In retrospect, I suppose my news sounded a bit extreme and possibly hasty.

But she was over a decade absent from my life at this point and had no idea of who I was at that moment or what had led me to the place where I was. We were strangers again in all the ways that matter. Sharing a past experience counts for exactly nothing though it can make for a pleasant coffee date.

Her husband died not long ago. I saw his obit on the city’s newspaper site.**

I followed the link to the mortuary website and left a note. Such a wonderful way to bridge the time and space that separates sometimes.

So when Sis told me that this friend was looking for a way to contact to me – I knew why.

We have something in common again.

Except we don’t.

All I can do is the same thing anyone else can, impart a few sympathetic words and remind her that time is really going to make a difference at some point down the road.

Maybe that is a lot more than it feels like. But it’s all that I have to offer.

*It surprises people but in the early to mid 90’s, Des Moines was an important bit of turf in a territory war between the Bloods and the Crips. Both would eventually lose out to Hispanic and Asian gangs, but for a while, tales from students about nightly shootings and keeping an eye out for rolled up pants legs and “colors” was part of my job description. And people said I was overpaid.

**I check the obits in hopes of one day seeing Will’s mother there. Yeah, I know what a cunt that makes me. And I don’t care.

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.