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She’s His Daughter
I wasn’t really prepared for the moment when it finally arrived. Though I knew it was coming, at least some day. I knew there would be a time when I would witness it, when I would see what it looked like right before my eyes. And yet, I was still stunned when I first saw Claire dance with Chris. Of course, it wasn’t really the first time they had ever danced in each other’s presence. We dance all the time in our kitchen, and sometimes Chris offers to show Claire a dance step. But since there haven’t been any school dances in the past few years, we haven’t been able…
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You Are Us
Two weeks ago, I texted a few friends to ask where I could get the best fresh crab meat. I told them I was making a special Valentine’s Day dinner for Chris, and I wanted it to be perfect. They were helpful, but also teased me a bit: how cute was it that I actually was fawning all over my husband on Valentine’s Day? Ah, newlywed love! I smiled at their texts, thinking about how funny it was that I was back in the stage of “new love.” Making a special Valentine’s day dinner, and thinking about it two weeks ahead of time! I try to not be too obnoxious…
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Dreams of Shawn
I’ve always had a lot of dreams. And also a number of nightmares. When I was little, those dreams were about playgrounds and neighborhood friends. My recurring nightmare was about a mean witch who tried to cook me in a pot. As I grew, my dreams were about the good things around me (getting asked to prom by someone I liked), and my nightmares were about my fears (making a fool of myself at a school assembly). As my mom grew sicker, sometimes these nightmares were actually scary. Once she died, I often had nightmares where my dad or my sister would die too. So I guess it’s not strange…
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What If He Dies? (Part 2)
Well. There’s nothing like writing a post about my fear of Chris’s death to cause a lot of mail to arrive in my inbox. Some of these messages were public. But a lot of them were private, as sometimes happens with really intense posts I write. “I feel that way too,” said one reader after another. “I worry about my new partner dying.” “I know,” I’d write back. “It’s just something widows feel, I think. We know death is real. And even though we’ve faced it, it still scares us.” A few days after I wrote the post, I was talking to Chris in the kitchen after dinner. We picked…
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“It’s a Journey”
If there’s one thing that people love to say to widows, it’s this phrase: “It’s a journey!” I’ve heard this statement in so many different widow-related contexts, it’s hard to count. Sometimes, there’s a softness in the voice of someone saying it, as you cry and try to imagine the day when you aren’t sobbing every fifteen minutes. Sometimes, you hear it from a friend as you try to organize the many boxes of your late spouse’s stuff, a gentle reminder that you don’t have to do it all at once. But the time when people liked to say it to me the most was when I started dating. Because…
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What If He Dies?
I woke up in the dark this morning, and I was alone. I could hear Chris rustling in the next room, probably putting things in his overnight bag. He was leaving on a very early flight. His job is still based in Atlanta, and thus to Atlanta he had to go. I wasn’t fully awake yet, and so I simply laid there, listening to his quiet movements. He stepped softly, not wanting to wake me up. He loves me so much, I thought. I’m so lucky to have him, I thought. And then, in an instant, my thoughts turned. What if he dies? I thought. My heart started to race.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
