Remembering the Stupid Old Man
Last week I sat in a waiting room while my car was being repaired. I shared the space with an elderly couple sitting quietly together. When their car was ready, I watched (discreetly) as they left the building. The woman needed both hands on her rolling walker. The man retrieved her coat from the car to protect her from the chilly rain, then held the door for her. Although he said nothing, the tenderness was clear. I miss that. Knowing that somebody has your back—no matter what.
No matter if you forgot to brush your teeth. If your socks don’t match. If foul words slipped off your tongue in the heat of an argument last week. No matter what.
This week marks the second anniversary of my husband’s death. All this time I’ve attended a support group for widows and widowers. Without this community of survivors, I might have drowned in a sea of grief. But my head is still above the surface. And when I do find myself floundering, I am better able to accept what is happening in the moment and seek help.
Help usually comes in the form of human contact. Sometimes help arrives in the nick of time. More often, though, I must actively pursue the contact I need. That’s the hard part. I’m not what you’d call “gregarious.”
One of the widows in the support group said she thought the second year after losing a spouse was the hardest. That made sense. During the first year, I was in shock. And while grief certainly threatened to suck me under permanently—there was too much to do to allow this to happen! So many little legal things to take care of. And then the need to absorb all the husband chores that I formerly had the luxury of not worrying about. My day-to-day living needed constant rearrangement. And people were at the ready to help.
By the second year, day-to-day living has developed a new groove. From the outside looking in, life appears more normal. But that’s when the homestead develops hollow places that weren’t previously there. Spaces that can’t be filled with radio, a hobby, or even company.
So, my house is on the market. Maybe I think a smaller house will have less room for those empty spaces. Maybe I think if I move into a town I’ll socialize more. Probably neither of these things is true.
I had a co-worker out West (in my previous life) who lost her husband all of a sudden. I remember being surprised when after two years she was still clearly grieving. This misunderstanding wasn’t my fault, really. The workings of widowhood are simply incomprehensible until you experience them.
But I get it now. I still wake up not sure whether to regard the new day as a gift or a curse. Some mornings I awaken from dreaming about my darling Kirk, and I lose him all over again. Sometimes that ticks me off: Stupid Old Man! (Why didn’t he take better care of himself?)
I went to the eye doctor recently. He asked about Kirk. When I explained why my husband wasn’t with me, Doc got all apologetic for bringing it up. As if he’d poked open a wound that was trying to heal. But, in fact, talking about the deceased helps the healing.
So, please, share your remembrances with survivors. It’s an act that actually helps them to rejoin the living—a process that I now see has no definitive timeline.