Becoming a Widow

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The death of my partner, husband, other half, or whatever you want to call him does not “automatically” make me a widow. Maybe legally and socially it does. Becoming a widow takes place for me in increments, by degrees, with each unpleasant realization that I am alone, without the familiar presence I had grown used to over decades. Nights are the most difficult to process. I lay awake listening for the once regular sounds of snoring, anticipating the familiar odor of his body accompanied by those nighttime vapors, evidence of his processing my latest culinary effort.

The thought of eating is distressing to me. I know I need to take in enough calories and liquids to fuel and hydrate what is rapidly becoming a never-ending stream of tears and frenzied house cleaning. I breathe deeply and sigh often with overwhelming feelings of grief, emptiness, and despair. I don’t want to see anyone but there are many neighbors and friends who are grieving his loss too. I see tears well up when they tell their stories of how he made them laugh, what an inspiration or comfort he was, how he always greeted them with a smile and a joke. My son said he was a real mensch.

I picked up his ashes yesterday from the funeral home. His remains are in a simple, elegant bronze urn with his full name on it and the years he lived. I sat in the car with the urn in the passenger seat and cried and screamed. Too stark, too final an end. It was what he wanted. It is what I want when it’s my time.

It’s been four days. My sister is coming today to help me sort out his clothes and other personal items. Her church supports a lot of needy people in Dallas, TX and I thought it would be best to give her the contents of his side of the closet to distribute. Suddenly I realize that his empty half will create a bigger hole in the pit of my stomach. Eventually, evidence of his presence in our home will be physically gone. I am keeping some of the clothes he wore that were my favorites. I can’t let his existence be totally erased.

Our dog is acting strangely. When I prepare her morning meal in the usual way, she won’t eat it. Now I have to give her a small portion and wait with her till she eats it then give her another small portion and wait again, till she is full. She is grieving too. I called the vet and they told me that she would eventually settle down. Her sense of a void where he used to be on the sofa doesn’t keep her from taking her place there to wait for him.

When everyone has gone home and I no longer have his affairs to settle is when my emotional health will get its ultimate test. I hope I didn’t make him wait too long to die by trying a non-invasive medical approach. I just wanted him to try. It wasn’t my place to try for him though. I hope I didn’t cause him any extra pain. I hope he didn’t hate me before he died. Too much to sort out right now. Becoming a widow is not immediate, it is painful, and that’s the way it happens. I know I will be asked to fill out forms with check boxes: single, married, divorced, widow. I’ve only been single, married, and divorced, till now. When I have to mark widow, that’s when I will slam headfirst into that fourth category. There is no preparation for becoming a widow…it is a process. I’m not there yet.