“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 was dedicated to him, but published after his sudden death.
But there was one piece I wrote after his death: the introduction, from which I just quoted.
Today it’s Wednesday, the day I make the effort to write about widowhood. And because, I was about to do so, and was preparing lunch, I was remembering that period when I stopped eating.
It is fifteen years now since I wrote Passionate V’s introduction, seventeen years since that time I grew so thin, effortlessly. Because “thin” equals “attractive” in our culture, I was often, inexplicably, paid compliments, sometimes in the same breath with condolences. I learned to say, “Thank you.” Sometimes I’d add, “It’s the grief diet.”
Now, as I write, it is August. Local vegetables are in full spate. I’ve been mostly eating the same lunch the last few weeks: a big pile of fresh vegetables with two poached eggs on top of them. Different vegetables, cooked and seasoned differently, daily. Today: onion sauteed in olive oil, with diced carrot, green chile, diced broccoli stems and flowerets. Garlic. Spaghetti-cut zucchini, a diced tomato: one of those gorgeous dense yellow meaty heirloom tomatoes, which look like the beating heart of life itself.
Of course I was unable to eat after Ned’s death. I did not want to be in life, and I wasn’t, entirely. I was in no-person’s land. Everything in me in rebelled against the normalizing actions of life.
That may be why friends and neighbors feel called on to bring over food immediately after a death; to instinctively root the widowed in normalcy, to take care of him or her when s/he cannot do it for him- or herself. I recognized and appreciated the lovingkindness in the flood of food. It was also disorienting.
One night, two or three weeks after Ned’s death, at perhaps three in the morning, I realized it had been awhile since I had eaten anything.
I thought, with detached, looking-down-on-myself logic, ‘Perhaps you should eat something, Crescent.’ I opened the refrigerator. People had been delivering food non-stop; I wasn’t eating. The packed fridge was unfamiliar, one more strangeness. A mason jar, politely labeled, contained homemade turkey-sausage gumbo, from someone who obviously cared for me but didn’t actually know me well enough to realize I had not eaten either turkey or sausage in thirty-some years. I removed the gumbo, closed the refrigerator door, carried the gumbo to the blue compost bucket by the sink, poured it in.
‘You really should eat something, Crescent,’ I thought to myself again. I opened the fridge a second time, looking.
I opened the vegetable bin. And there was a… what was it? An object the size and shape of a large egg, leathery, black.
I took it out and gazed at it, resting it in my palm. Really, what was it? I looked at it for a long time, standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night.
Finally I realized it was a very, very old avocado. I had no idea when it had been placed in my fridge, or by whom. I walked over to the compost bucket again and dropped it in.
And heard myself think: “Boy, I sure will be glad when all this is over and things get back to normal.”
And then realized: Things will never be normal again.. He is dead.
That shocking re-realization, for perhaps the 900th of what would be thousands of times. The dark house, the quiet night so still, except for howling, there on the checkerboard kitchen floor.
The woman — call her Wendy — had been away from the town where Ned and I had lived at the time of his death. I knew her slightly; a fitness class, the Preservation Society. She came walking towards me. It was early spring, maybe five or six months after he died, the first time I’d seen her since it happened.
By then I was very thin. I don’t own a scale, so I can’t tell you in pounds, but my jeans were slipping from my hips. I had notable cheekbones.
Wendy said, “Oh, Crescent, when I heard… I am so, so sorry.”
I said, “Thank you.”
And she said, “But you look great!”
And, because it was not the first time I had heard this peculiar construction, had already come to grips with its strangeness, I said, again, “Thank you.”
And then she said the following. Said it thoughtfully, speculatively.
She said, “But… I guess you’d rather have Ned back and the extra weight, right?”
Here is one thing I sometimes ate, in the months between his cremation and when I took his ashes to be placed as he had specified.
I would walk over to the vessel in which his ashes resided. At first, this was a red Japanese urn with a lid, loaned to me by friends; later, a beautiful box made by another friend, a fine arts woodworker.
I would lick the tip of my right forefinger.
I would dip my fingertip in his ashes.
I would lick my finger.
At the first International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference I attended after Ned’s death, one of many generous women I know slightly in that congenial organization came up to me.
She was aware, as most there were, that Ned had died. It had been in the newsletter, and he was a well-liked member. She re-introduced herself, rested her hand on my shoulder.
“Oh, Crescent,” she said. ” I was widowed about ten years ago. I got so thin too.” She shook her head. Squeezed my shoulder, looked me directly in the eye.
“I am so sorry,” she said. Those same words everyone says — how sincere they are from some, how perfunctory and fake from others. From her, solacing.
“You will get through this,” she said. I didn’t believe it, because what was “through this” when he would still be dead? But I accepted that she believed it.
I know some widows who couldn’t stop eating after their spouse’s death. And eating, of course, is a familiar gesture of self-comfort. (It turns out there is even a word for this, in German; kummerspeck, or “grief bacon.”) I know of a very few who gained a lot of weight after their spouses died. I can easily see how this, too, might be the case: another instance of the non-normality, the out-of-control-ness of that state; the reverse of my response but wholly understandable.
I had self-comforted myself in the past with many a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch in lesser moments of torment, sadness or frustration. But with Ned’s death, that method flew away.
I mention this in case you are a widow who is coping with loss by eating. For you, that’s what you need to do. You can tell that it is because it is what you are doing.
We do what we have to do to get through it, wondering every moment if “through it” exists. There is no right way to grieve. The very act of having to grieve is egregious, unthinkable insult. If ice cream soothes you even a bit, or if not eating allows you to get by, or if putting his ashes on your tongue gives comfort… then that, evidently, is what you need to do.
You are here, after all. That’s asking more than enough of you under the circumstances, isn’t it?
Shopping in the co-op in Fayetteville for the first time after Ned’s death, maybe four months later. I still wasn’t eating much, but I had to get something.
Ned was a big guy; 6 feet 4 inches tall, maybe 225 pounds. He loved to eat. No matter how much food I bought it wasn’t enough.
That day, the day of the first shopping, I put a small handful of green beans into a plastic bag. There, standing in the produce aisle, looking at the uncharacteristically small, ridiculously tiny quantity I had selected, perhaps a sixth of what I’d typically have purchased in previous decades of sometimes buying green beans for our dinners, I burst into tears again.
God, how I hated this, the way grief mugged you, over and over again, the absurdity of crying over green beans. Get over it, Crescent, I told myself furiously, get over it!
I wiped away tears, continued shopping; what else was I to do?
On the other side of the market, near the dairy products, I ran into a jazz musician with whom I’d had a brief, amicable fling back when I was maybe 21, years before I met Ned. Occasionally we’d run into each other, like we did that day; it was easy and friendly. He and his group had played a few times at the restaurant Ned and I had owned.
Artie gave me big a smile. He said, “How are you, Crescent?”
I said, “Well, you know. I’m here. I mean, given…”
Artie, puzzled, picked up that something was wrong. His expression altered. He said, carefully, “Given what?”
I said, “Ned’s death.”
His face crunched up, he pressed one hand to it, lowered his head, sobbed — loudly enough so people turned. When he straightened back up, he grabbed me fiercely, said, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know!” He continued crying, hugging me hard. Then he asked how it happened. I repeated the terrible, unbelievable facts.
There was nothing about grief I didn’t hate.
” In a large, observational study of 20,000+ adults over age 50, being single, widowed, or having less frequent contact with friends was associated with less variety of fruit and vegetable intake, and it got worse for people who lived alone and also had less frequent contact with friends—they had even less variety than in those who were just single.” — article put out by the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Study, Cornell University.
As I sauteed the vegetables this morning, I thought about all this.
I thought, what can I tell my fellow members of the Club No One Wants to Join about returning to eating well as soon as they can, but accepting the way they are eating or not eating when in the intense throes of grief?
I thought, yes, cooking good healthy food for yourself and taking the time to do it is self-care 101 for you, CD. But what about those who were married to someone else who did all the cooking… how would they get by in widowhood?
I thought, I have no good answer to these questions.
I had not considered that long-ago Passionate Vegetarian intro, until it came to mind as I sat down to write this. As I reread the introduction, I realized I did have an answer, though not a complete one:
“… (E)ventually I began to eat again, and sometimes take a little pleasure in it. Of course, this marked my slow, reluctant return to life, a life utterly not what I had planned. To eat, despite this, became a series of yesses. Yes to the work of learning to live almost despite myself, even when faced with irreconcilable loss. Yes to food that nourishes and delights body and soul, honors the fragile planet from which it comes…Yes, to life on its own inherent high-risk terms, which offers no guarantees.
“What we eat is part of the way we are rooted to our very temporary home in this world. Eating well honors life.”
My dear fellow widow. Life, though you may not hear it yet, is calling you. You may eventually be able to hear it, and if you wish, to answer. You have a future, and almost certainly it is not what you are feeling in this present moment, especially if you are in the torment of early-stage grief.
Please eat, as soon as you are able. Eat well. Eat with friends. Eat in solitude. Eat your vegetables!
I did, this morning. Lots of vegetables. With two poached eggs.
OH Crescent….so many of your thoughts this week ring true to me. I am one of the ones who eat when stressed. My situation though, is a little different in that my husband’s death was not sudden. Joe had cancer and spent the month of December 2016 in the hospital only coming home on 12/23 with Hospice. During the month of Dec, I was so tired. Daily working form home, then on to the hospital until early evening. Friends would call to check on me and suggest i meet them for dinner — eating out. Not always the best option. I am one of the ones who gained weight during Joe’s illness and after his passing. I just stopped caring. It was all so overwhelming. Just trying to decide what to cook brought on a mental block. It is better now, i am taking better care of myself. I’ve gone back to doing yoga and am eating better. Grief continues to mug me when i least expect it and i’m sure it will for a long time. I’m told that things will be normal again, it will just be a ‘new normal’.
Oh, honey. So recent for you. And it can’t be hurried, and it hurts so badly at this point. I am sorry sorry sorry.
How long was the period between when Joe was diagnosed and his death? How much pain was he in? All these things make such a difference… I am so sorry, Sharon. Each circumstance has its own kind of hell, I think. I can speak to the hell of a sudden, out-of-the-blue death, but when I hear the stories of all that those in your circumstance endured… phew. I will never understand why life is set up this way.
I hear the “new normal” thing too — I guess all of us do — but I don’t know that it’s accurate. We become different people in some ways; is that “new”? But loving life now — life now seems not “normal” but extraordinary to me, illuminated, brief, full of wonder and tragedy… an ongoing sense of the world that is other than what I felt before his death…
We enter the realm of mystery here, really.
Courage, my dear.
He was diagnosed in August 2016 and we began the process of port placement….MRI’s……then chemo… the third treatment was 11/30 and on 12/5 he wound up in the ER for a hospital stay that lasted until he came home on 12/23…. he passed on 1/10/17…exactly one month before his 73rd birthday. He was in pain during some of the chemo but we got theinder control with opioids…then in his final days a fentanal (sp?) patch. No pain there. It was all horrible but I thought I’d die when the funeral home came and put him on the stretcher and took him out…I can close my eyes and feel him …. see him….I’ve kept his voice mail messages on my iPhone….I continue to be mugged…
I am so sorry. Yes, it does feel like we are dying when they are taken away, and in a way, the old self we were with them does die. It is too sad, awful, non-negotiable, and you are in such early days with it — for those of us who loved and were loved well over time, grief just keeps on mugging us over and over for awhile.
Nothing will ever ask so much of you as this impossible period. At least so it was for me.
But there is an “after” to all of this. You can’t hurry it or predict it, but it is there.
Embracing you from a distance, Sharon…
“I would walk over to the vessel in which his ashes resided…I would lick the tip of my right forefinger…I would dip my fingertip in his ashes…I would lick my finger.” This statement caught me absolutely flat-footed… as I reached the end of the sentence, I looked to my right, where the box of my husband’s ashes lay and began sobbing… wishing I could do the same (his box is thoroughly sealed). Although I can’t exactly find the words as to why, I grok this action to the core of my soul.
Cooking, has always been a kind of weather vane showing me how I was feeling in my life at any given moment. It was never a good sign when I chose only to fuel up and didn’t have the energy to “Laurelize” even a simple dish… that a friend coined this word is utter proof of this fact. ^_^ During Hunnyman’s three month battle with cancer, I lost almost 20 pounds, in worry and lack of sleep (it was nothing compared to his 50+lb loss of muscle mass). I was grateful for every morsel of food that friends brought then & after his death. Although I cooked him ANYTHING he wanted to eat during his illness, I didn’t have the physical, let alone emotional energy to cook much for myself.
In the nearly six months following his death, I have begun to cook more and more, but for much of this time, I have only made human fuel, if you will, and I only did THAT because shortly before his death, I had promised him that I would take care of myself and go on. Luckily (?) I had no idea what that promise would entail, or I might have never made it.
In the last month or so, I am finally, but simply, beginning to Laurelize again; adding touches here and there to even the simplest dish to make it my own. I cook and eat much more simply without him here – he was such an appreciative audience but he loved much more fatty foods than I do. Because I only have to feed myself, I only eat two and a half meals a day and my evening meal is filled with seasonal fruits and vegetables, many of which he was none too fond (crucifers!).
But as fond as I am of cooking, it is in the sharing and the memories that different dishes evoke, that I miss so greatly. Even something as simple as an Oreo cookie… Last night I ate the last of the Oreo cookies in the house. A week or two before his death, Hunnyman brought home a bag of them, which could always take us a few weeks to go through. But because of his cancer we pretty much ignored them and there were quite a few left after his death. Although in the ensuing six months they have gotten a little stale, they were still tasty when dipped in milk. Last night, in a bittersweet ritual, I sat with the last three, and dipped them almost reverently in milk. All sorts of memories, of these and other little treats that we shared over 23 years came flooding back. They may have been “just” Oreo cookies, but it was the last of the food that HE had bought for us. For those few moments, I let HIM feed ME one last time. ?
“Although I can’t exactly find the words as to why, I grok this action to the core of my soul.” It may not be analyzable.I think maybe — it’s a physical connection and intimacy, the last one can possibly have. But I simply felt compelled, and comforted. Even as I cried too. And I’m glad you understood (I was a little afraid it might be unacceptable to those who read it).
I understand about the Oreos, God knows. Communion. Anything that has an association is powerful and fraught. And “the last.” Cleaning out the fridge and there were “the last” leftovers of something he’d cooked. It is too hard too hard, and yet we do it.
I’m glad you are eating again, and starting to Laurelize. It is still very early days, though, to expect much of yourself, I think. Although many of us do, and get into trouble with it.
Will you release Hunnyman’s ashes? Do you have a place in mind?
Sending love and kisses… Courage, persistence, cruciferous vegetables!
Crescent, I am so sorry for your loss, but this is a very timely blog post for me to read. I lost my husband on April 1st, of this year. It was a sudden death. I found him when I came home from a friend’s vow renewal ceremony.
During my time of “recovery”, so to speak, I found myself not wanting to eat any food that I already had in the house. Thank goodness for my neighbors and friends who fed me during those trying days. Now, I can easily understand why it is important to take food during the time of loss or to a home before the funeral. It’s tough.
Thanks for writing this wonderful blog. It made me realize that I am not the only one who went through this. Best, Linda Rogers Weiss
Sudden is so hard, but to come home after a friend’s vow renewal and find him! Good god, I don’t understand the cruelty of this universe.
“Recovery” — love that you put quotes around it, because of course, though one has the possibility of getting to a new, happy, and at-peace place (I did, eventually) it’s not “recovery” since you cannot “recover” the person you lost. Nor is it closure, because something in you, or most of us, is broken wide open by this experience. As it should be. If we loved someone, and we lose them to death, yes, it breaks us open.
Whatever one calls it, it takes a long time. It happens by tiny increments. These are very very early days for you, my dear. I remember when people used to say to me, “Be gentle with yourself” I felt disbelief and total perplexity — what on earth could they mean?
I am drawn to these same words, and I guess I mean just — experience whatever you experience, with as much compassion towards yourself as possible. Extra sleep, eating or not eating, anger, the desire for solitude — whatever form grief takes at any particular moment as it works you — just try to be with that, at that moment, gently.
Courage, Linda, and, again, compassion toward yourself.
This is so so lovely and authentic. While I’ve not lost a husband, I’ve felt loss and grief that has rendered me unable to eat. Withholding our own sustenance, in a way, I suppose, is a way for us to suffer and grieve on another level.
I think so, Talya. “Withholding our own sustenance” is a a good way to put it: a form of resisting a reality that is so unacceptable and yet which we are forced to accept.
My husband died on Feb. 2 of this year after being treated for small cell lung cancer for 6 months. I cooked for him almost every day for 27 years and after each meal, he always – ALWAYS – thanked me for it, even when all he could do was sip water. Until he was too sick to join me there, we ate together at our dining room table without distractions and those times were some of the best of our lives, even during his illness.
Like you, I lost weight, but it was during his illness and not after he died. While he was sick, I made him a fortified milkshake every day because he disliked the taste of Ensure or other protein drinks. He craved eggs, so he had those for dinner almost every night. I was so busy trying to make foods he could or would eat that I neglected my own diet. And like you, after he passed I had a fridge full of donated food, much of which I couldn’t bring myself to eat. What I craved was caramel popcorn and raw cookie dough – and that’s what I lived on for a while.
It has been 6 months since Tom died and since I downsized my residence in June, I’ve been cooking for myself again. I go to the farmer’s market and load up on fresh fruits and vegetables, which I cook en masse and eat with lunch and dinner all week. I’ve gone back to twice a week yoga and look forward to meals out with friends, which have been the bulk of my social life. I’m learning that I have to care for myself as well as I cared for my husband.
I still hate eating alone. I miss his presence every minute of every day and have gut-wrenching crying jags on a regular basis. But I’m getting healthier physically again. Baby steps.
A friend introduced me to your wonderful blog. Thank you so much. Now I know that my feelings are completely normal. It’s a sad sorority to be part of, but it’s truly a comfort.
“Now I know my feelings are completely normal.” Yes, dear Debbie… thank you for your kind words — that is why I do this. As I wrote in an early one, “not insanity, grief.” Thank you also for sharing your experiences. I really feel being transparent to each other is important if we are to not be isolated in this experience.
I am so sorry for all you endured, and that all of us in this group have endured.
Baby steps ARE steps, and will slowly take us toward whatever our next lives will be. xo
He was only 44 when he died. I was 40 and had been married to him since I was 19. It was 25 years ago and I still tear up thinking about it, but it does get easier with time, please believe me.
My cousin sent me a beautiful food basket with all kinds of exotic cheeses, crackers and sour dough pretzels. I took the box of pretzels out of the basket and lived on them until they were gone, then bought another box and then another. For several weeks I lived on pretzels. I buy them now and smile remembering how comforting they were for some strange reason.
This is my first visit here, but not my last. I love how this post made me feel.
Thank you so much, dear Rocky Mountain Woman… I love this story! You and I are both farther along in this journey than many. I feel we can and must speak with compassion and trutghfulness to those who are younger in grief… xo