We are so tired of our story, so exhausted by it. We hate going over it and over it, yet we do, obsessively (one reason we feel insane, though we are not; we’ve grieving). We have exhausted all our friends, and we try not to burden them any more; they have been so good to us, they know our story…. Read More
Three months and eighteen days after Ned’s death, I took his ashes, as per his written request, to India. This was still relatively early days, so perhaps I can be forgiven for my persistent illusion: I still thought you could somehow outsmart grief. I did not yet know that when grief wants to be felt, it will find a way to… Read More
“For months after Ned’s death I barely ate. (How could I taste, let alone digest, when my sweet partner had suddenly, absolutely vanished from the earth, could never close his eyes again in ecstasy at something so simple as a perfect baked red yam or a plate of pancakes?)” I wrote most of Passionate Vegetarian when Ned was alive. It… Read More
Grief, in the early stages; grief, after the first layer of shock has worn off: so excruciatingly painful is it, and so discontinuous with the reality we knew before death took the person we most loved in the world, that we do not want to feel it. And, as we struggle against it— for who would willingly accept such pain?… Read More
About a year ago, a friend who’s a fellow widow wrote on Facebook about the then-current phase of her grieving. She allowed me to quote her here, without identification. Her words: “… it happens, even two years down the road, this stage: the ‘stay at home, don’t want to see anyone, or do anything’ stage. “As any of you who know… Read More
I wrote, last Wednesday, about the awfulness of others saying “You were lucky to have him,” to us, the bereaved, often at a moment shockingly close to the beloved’s death. But the more complicated truth is, not only do others say this to us, we say it to ourselves. My friend, the writer Jane Yolen (who has been widowed for… Read More
