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The Look of Real Love
Since becoming a widow, I’ve started to study other people’s relationships. I didn’t start doing this on purpose, and for many months after Shawn died, I didn’t really notice other people. But then I started to look out. I began to watch my friends and acquaintances for clues as to how I was going to navigate the world without my husband. I did a lot more observing than I’d ever done before. The other day, I met up with a new friend and although we’ve known each other professionally for a while now, I don’t know much about his personal life. I hadn’t seen him in a few months and…
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Reflections at Your Grave on Easter Weekend
I’m sitting on your grave, typing. The workers here already think that I’m crazy – I saw one of them gesture towards me a few minutes ago when I laid my head in the grass – but I’m just going to keep writing. I’m not like all the other visitors. I’ve been here for an hour, and I’ve seen the mourners come and go. They drive up, get out slowly from their cars, and walk to a grave. Maybe they bring flowers. Maybe they stare at the grave for a while. But after a few minutes, they leave. I’m not sure why they would leave on such a beautiful day. …
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The Closet
I am a minimalist. So was Shawn. We both hated stuff, and made sure to clear out anything that wasn’t being used frequently. In fact, a friend came over the other day after I cleaned and jokingly asked, “what happened? Did you get robbed?” I laughed. Shawn would have been proud. My kids know that I am likely to get rid of any and all clutter and they are pretty used to it, but they frequently worry that I might “lose” something of theirs. For example, the other day at a party, Claire came up to me, handed me something and started to run off. But then she paused, turned…
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Freak-Out Letter #6
Just before Shawn and I got married, I almost backed out. I mean, not really. I knew I was going to marry him. But I had just turned 25 and I had a little freak-out that we were getting married too young. I had barely graduated from college and neither of us had jobs. We were moving to a city where we had no friends and I had spent the previous 3 years traveling around the world with little more than what I could fit in a backpack. I can’t remember exactly what brought on the freak-out, but I definitely remember crying to Shawn about how maybe we should postpone…
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Backsliding Into Grief
“Shawn used to order the craziest pizza toppings,” someone said with a smile. “He loved the ‘meat classic’ and anything else that had meat on top of meat,” I said, and everyone laughed. I was smiling remembering his ridiculous pizza orders for our group of friends. And then I was crying. Sobbing, really. “I miss him so much,” I kept saying as I continued to cry for what felt like a really long time. Everyone was comforting. I was beside myself. I don’t know how to fully put this down on paper, but at that moment I felt just as sad as I had in the weeks immediately after Shawn…
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Claire’s New Email Address
Claire has known about email for a long time, but it was only recently that she discovered that some of her friends have their own email addresses. “Mom!” she said excitedly one day last week, “all of my friends have email addresses and I need one too!” I’d waited a long time for this. Actually, Shawn was the one who had looked forward to setting up Claire with an email account when she was old enough for one. In fact, when she was only a few months old, he told me he had secured an email address for her. I remembered the email address. But I couldn’t remember the password.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
