Fresh Widows

You wonder what prepares you for life as a widow. Our mothers rarely mentioned a topic everyone avoided. Death happened in movies, on TV, or to someone else in the news.  It never seemed real to me until Bob died. As a dear friend said to me who lost her husband last week, I never thought it would happen to me. I never thought I would be a widow. I didn’t know what to say to her. We are all on unfamiliar territory.  Her grief is raw like ours was six years ago.  Each day is too long. The silence is deafening. Neighbors and friends try to comfort her but it doesn’t help. She misses what you mentioned in FRESH WIDOWS…the ordinary touching that I miss so much, the kind that happens in the kitchen when your husband needs you to move away from the sink so he can get in and fill the water glasses for dinner—just that little nudge on the hip that moves you over, that utter familiarity.