Widowish

Sort of, but not exactly.

Photo by name_ gravity on Unsplash

I’m borrowing the title of this post from an excellent memoir by Melissa Gould, which I read several years ago. If you’re a young widow—or a person facing widowhood—I recommend Gould’s book for your TBR list.

My next door neighbor is coming up on her 80th birthday. She’s been my neighbor for the entire time I’ve lived in this house; when Mike and I moved in, our kids were almost-8 and almost-5. Our neighbors, Sam and Mabel, had two adult children and were delighted to serve in the role of surrogate grandparents, since (at the time) they had no grandchildren to hang out with.

A lot changes in 22 years. Mabel has two grandkids now, both of them nearing adulthood. Sam died 8 years ago. When I stopped by for coffee a few weeks ago and Mabel mentioned to me that she’d be turning 80 soon, I realized that she’d actually been a little younger than I am now when we moved into this house—in spite of the fact that, even then, I was referring to her as my elderly neighbor.

Mabel, obviously, is a widow. But when she asked me how Mike was doing, and I tried to explain the strange manifestations of Parkinson’s dementia—like the fact that Mike will sometimes talk about me in the third person, as though I’m not right there in the room with him—she nodded sympathetically.

“It’s just so hard to lose someone you’ve loved for so much of your life,” she said.

I nodded, grateful that she understood what I hadn’t said outright. Grateful that she was allowing me into the club of women who have lost their partners, if only for that moment. Grateful she didn’t say something like At least he’s still with you—which is both true and, at the same time, not true at all.

When people refer to grief, they’re usually referring to what medical practitioners classify as “acute grief”—the kind that immediately follows the death of a loved one. We’re used to seeing this. We know what it looks like. And, if we’ve lost a loved one, we know what it feels like as well—we experience “normal grief” in the form of the physical and emotional symptoms that follow our initial loss.

But the kind of grief I’m dealing with right now is “anticipatory”—the grief that follows diagnosis of a terminal illness, or a chronic illness that’s going to create significant change in the trajectory of someone’s life. Those of us in this boat are mourning the loss of what will be, rather than what was.

As I’ve noted before, doctors like to tell newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients that the disease isn’t fatal. What they don’t mention is that some of its symptoms—like dementia—are, in fact, fatal. Or, if you prefer, “life limiting”: a condition for which there is no cure, likely to result in premature death. But almost from the start, one doctor after another insisted that Mike was very young and very healthy and Parkinson’s wasn’t going to have any serious impact on his life for a very long time.

Until two years after his initial diagnosis, when it did. At that point—having no other choice—everyone changed their tune. Doctors suddenly became very sad, almost apologetic as they explained what was likely to happen.

In those early days, I was grieving the imminent loss of Mike’s independence while sympathizing with his own grief over losing a career he loved. And I still grieve losses as I notice them—just a few days ago, I realized that I will never again laugh at Mike doing his Flying Nun bit (standing at the edge of a doorway, leaning his long torso forward as he extends his arms in flight, then waving to the people in the room when they notice his presence.) But more and more often, I find myself grieving what will be.

Or, rather, what won’t.

We will never go back to Scotland again, for instance, to see all the things we missed on our first trip, when wind and snow often kept us hunched over and staring at the ground in front of us. Climbing Arthur’s Seat was not an option. So that hike was on our future itinerary, along with a walking tour of the street art in Glasgow.

We’ll never go back to Antigua, where we celebrated a milestone anniversary with the honeymoon we couldn’t afford as newlyweds. Lounging beside the Caribbean again was also on our itinerary.

Many people will exhort you to “Take the trip now!” as a way of avoiding this fate. But my guess is that people who enjoy travel are always planning a trip. If that journey should become impossible, anticipatory grief will kick in no matter how much travel they’ve done in the past. They’ll be grateful for the experiences they’ve had—for as long as they can remember them, anyway—but the memories of what was won’t displace their grief at what will be: a life without travel.

Beause quite often, what will be is very different from what we’ve planned. When the person with whom we’ve envisioned a future can’t be part of that vision anymore, sorrow is a natural response to our loss. That’s why it’s called “normal grief.”

Those of us who are widowish, grieving losses that are less visible than a deceased partner, often find ourselves defending that position. When well-meaning friends and relatives encourage us to believe our grief isn’t necessary or appropriate because he’s still here, we can’t say “No, he’s not.” Because he is.

Sort of. But not exactly.

I was struggling with that ambiguity a few weeks ago, trying to decide whether to take Mike to an event that was happening in downtown San Antonio over the weekend—the kind of thing he would have loved, in the before times, and an event small enough that I knew I could navigate it with him. I asked one of the nurses at his dementia care program for her input.

“What I always tell people is ‘Do it for the moment, not the memory,’” she said. “If you’re taking him because you think he’ll enjoy it while he’s there—then go for it. But don’t do it because you want him to have a happy memory. He’s not going to remember it, no matter what you do."

So we stayed home that weekend, as we do most of the time, because that’s where Mike seems happiest. He likes being able to take a nap whenever he wants—the constant movement caused by Parkinson’s is exhausting—and when he’s resting, at least I have the peace of mind that comes of knowing he’s safe.

Which is all I really want for him, because I do love this guy. It’s just that I miss the other guy a lot.