Most of us, before widowhood was thrust upon us, gave little thought to what that state would actually be like. And when and if we did try to conceive of it, most of us got it wrong. ” … In the version of grief we imagine (before we are widowed),” writes Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, ”… Read More
I would like to tell you, dear fellow members of the Club No One Wants to Join, especially those younger to widowhood than I am, that it gets easier over time. And I can. For it does. It gets easier over time. I would also, so very much, like not to tell you that you never get over it. But… Read More
How do we travel through widowhood and grief towards whatever the next phase of our life will be if, as we said last week, “healing” doesn’t work as a model? And let’s look at a couple of other commonly used phrases that also don’t apply; “getting over it,” and “closure.” How can you “get over” the death of someone you… 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
This is the way it works. You return to a town where you used to live. You go on a short walk, on a street you have walked many times. You are only stretching your back and legs and getting a few more steps in so your Fitbit will be happy at the end of the day. You are only… Read More
After the Los Angeles funeral of my late father, Maurice Zolotow, a well-dressed, chic, trim woman came up to me and extended her hand. She had excellent posture, and her hair — a jet-black that looked neither harsh nor unnatural — was well-styled in a short, flattering, expensive cut. Her age was hard to guess (I figured out later that… Read More
“He cannot be dead,” said Paul, my father’s editor at Playboy. “It is Friday. I am sitting here looking at a pitch letter he sent me on Monday.” Things you don’t realize will be part of your job description: returning voicemail messages left for your father, who has suddenly died. “Well, Paul,” I said, “Maurice always said he wanted to… Read More
We planned to go for a walk at twilight tonight, David and I, but when we stepped outside the dusk was chillier than we'd anticipated. "I wonder if I should go check the forecast," he said. "Yeah, you should," I said, "because if it's going to get below freezing we probably need to do some harvesting." He went back inside,… Read More
When I came to 410 East 57th Street that night, it was already dark, but not late. Early winter, then, it must have been, maybe about 7:30 or 8:00. A Sunday evening. Aunt Dot, then 95 or 96, was seated facing into the living room, in one of the two 50’s-era Danish modern recliner chairs (blonde wood, cushions covered in… Read More
The original inventers of twittering have been coming and going from the feeder all day today. Whenever I look out, from the bathroom window upstairs or the french doors in the kitchen downstairs, different visitors are at the cafe. Finches yellow as canaries, finches as reddish-purple as if they’d bathed in grape juice. Sparrows, in tweedy brown-gray-black-white. Black-caped chicadees. Grosbeaks,… Read More
Today, coming down to the hill towards the pond, beginning my morning walk, two animals — one large, one small — standing in the middle of the gravel road. I caught my breath, stood stock-still, blinked and waited, blinking a few times to clear my not-so-good vision so I could identify them. Ah. A white-tailed deer, and – what was… Read More
I began writing these words on Easter Sunday, as Christians celebrated the triumphant arc of their spiritual year, when Christ rises from death. But resurrection itself belongs to everyone, regardless of belief, or non-belief. Here in much of America, Easter-time coincides with the year's resurrection. The alarm clock set by the spin and wobble of this particular planet on which… Read More
