Once, we were a foursome: couples lucky enough to find one another in this big world, and to discover that we were more than just compatible. We had all the ingredients that mesh into a good and meaningful friendship.
S and K were just there, and we naively thought they always would be.
And then came the unexpected. In one of those unexplainable tragedies, a man in excellent health dies one morning in his driveway. Massive heart attack. Unfathomable. We grieved for him. We wept with his widow. And months later, I think about her every day at dusk.
While I’m preparing dinner, I think about how hard it must be for her as the day ends and the long night begins. And I try to imagine how S is dealing with being alone in a house she had shared for so long with her husband.
I relate totally. We are the same age, have basically the same history.
Widowhood, for my dear friend, is such a shocking, aching change. Such a day-by-day challenge that must grow more daunting, as reality sets in.
My husband and I haven’t planned our division of labor — but it has installed itself in our lives nonetheless.
He takes on the outside world: car care, outdoor home maintenance, insurance, taxes. While I work, I somehow have delegated myself to run “internal affairs” — cooking, laundry, mostly deciding our social activities.
Newly widowed S was shocked when she realized that she had no idea even where the local car inspection station was. She had never gone there. And she is horrified at the notion of going out on her own to buy a new car now that her old one is almost beyond viable life.
And she told me, that opening jars without her husband’s strong hands can make her dissolve into sobs.
Yes, alone can be lonely. And probably no one knows that better than a new widow or widower.
I know there’s a milestone wedding anniversary ahead. I also know that J’s adult children will spend the day with her, and that somehow, she’ll get through it.
But I also know that like so many old-marrieds, anniversaries take a life of their own and can leave the remaining half of a whole unit almost beyond consolation.
There will be ominous times when S feels as lonely as any grieving widow can feel. I’m sure there will be terrible times when she would give anything for a human connection.
I think anyone in a coupled relationship who’s honest will admit that there are those times when life alone may seem mighty appealing. When not having to compromise and bargain and please someone else would be like a fresh breeze.
Only you set the thermostat — and the agenda. Or decide where the new chair belongs.
What odd notions for the long-married. But still, at dusk — which comes later in the summer — I do call S.
We talk about the little things in our days — and sometimes the big things.
And I plan to keep S in my life and in my heart.
Especially now, it’s exactly where she belongs. ••
