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Ask a Widow: Photos in the Bedroom
Sometimes, I get questions from readers that really made me think. But there’s one that I got a few weeks ago that made both Chris and I think. Here’s what the email said (details have been changed, though I got permission from the writer to reprint his correspondence with me): My name is Michael and I’m the hopeful fiance to a widow. By way of some background, my love – Sarah – lost her husband Robert in 2019. She told me your blog helped her immensely so I’m writing to you. We started dating about a year after her husband died and have progressed to where we are today, living together…
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From the Archives: Dating…It’s Just Like Improv!
“Just make sure you’re always meeting in a public place,” my dad said, one night after I told him about an upcoming date I had. He was lying in the recliner, dressed in an old t-shirt and some sweatpants, an outfit that he only wore to bed. It was 8:30, which was close to his bedtime, and I teased him a little. “What do you think I’m going to do, have some guy I’ve never met over for 5:30 dinner with the kids?” He didn’t reply. He merely raised his eyebrows and slightly pursed his lips. I knew he thought online dating was risky. “Just look, Dad,” I said, showing…
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From the Archives: Maybe She Will Be the One to Save Me
One Saturday night in the late fall of 2019 as I was putting my kids to bed, I got a text from my friend Christine. Are you awake? I just picked up someone for you. I showed him your picture! I was laying down in Tommy’s bed, aimlessly scrolling through news stories and social media posts, but I sat up. Did Christine really just write that she had hit on someone for me? What? Are you out? I texted back. We are at a bar. Want his number? Should I give him yours? she asked. Then she sent a string of ideas about how I should start texting him, but…
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From the Archives: Dating and the Cabal
In the second year of widowhood, I became friends with a group of young widows. We called ourselves “The Glamorous Cabal of Widows” or “The Cabal” for short. Not everyone was dating yet, but when one of us went out on a date, we always texted the group. There was usually someone around to provide support, or in some cases, humor. We compared dating to root canals and war and everything else that we could think of that was bad. Fuck him, was a common reply to a date that went poorly. My other friends who heard about the Cabal only said, “I wouldn’t mess with any of you,” which…
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From the Archives: You Are Making Meaning Already
About a year after Shawn died, I had a short but passionate relationship with a man I’ll call Derek. It ended badly. I didn’t want to admit to most of my friends that the breakup hit me really hard. I told them that I wasn’t sure why I was down, but that I seemed to be experiencing new grief. Really, the original misery over losing Shawn had never gone away. But my relationship with Derek had tamped that grief down, had made it smooth around the edges, encapsulated in a vessel that I could hold and manage. Somehow, our breakup had broken that vessel and the grief spilled out everywhere.…
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From the Archives: Look Good in the ER
Looking at my sister is like looking in the mirror. The shape of her eyes, drawn down just a bit on the ends, and the curve of her mouth when she smiles are just two of the many physical similarities we share. As a kid, it grated on me that people thought we were twins. “I’m older,” I’d reply, indignantly. But we were always close, joined together by love and also by the difficulties of growing up in a house with a very ill parent. When our mom died, we grieved together even if we didn’t know exactly how to go about it. I’d been away at college for much…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
