Dating a Widower, compared to Dating a Divorced Man

My friend and colleague Abel Keogh writes a popular column on his blog, and runs several areas on Facebook, about the perils and pitfalls experienced by women who choose to date widowed men.

I have various quibbles with this topic, which he and I have discussed many times. To me, the Dating a Widower movement, such as it is, looks like it's just based on following Google to high readership. Just because people ask a question, doesn't mean there is a substantive answer to be found... though it can be created by someone inventive, responsive to readers, and with tremendous knowledge of the subject... as well as first hand experience as a member of the population in question. Abel is far from the only author tackling this subject: in addition to his two books, Dating a Widower and Marrying a Widower, there is Julie Donner Anderson's Past: Perfect! Present: Tense! and her associated forums and other activities.

I'll admit that those who date widowed people is not a group I have chosen to speak to or for... and that knowing how few men under 55 are widowed compared to women (at one time Social Security told me it was 1 man to 7 women) makes me quite skeptical... but some of the stories Abel and his readers share are pretty dreadful.

Many of the men in question seem to have significant trouble living comfortably with their past lives and experiences. Perhaps some of them were even a little nuts before they were widowed (we are changed by our losses... but not that much).

I also think that widowers with children still at home (most of the widowers I know fall in this category) are a bit more justified in hanging on to "stuff" from their past lives and sharing family (like in-laws) and memories a bit more actively. This is a giant set of exceptions that negates, for me, a lot of Abel's advice.

To be honest I have been pretty suspicious of these areas in part because when I was dating, at 40 ... I looked only at men who had been married. To me, the only relevant person to compare a widower's baggage to was... a divorced man. (I mostly restricted my searches to men who had been parents, because I had a young child and needed someone who'd understand that if I cancelled a date due to flu that he shouldn't take it personally... and I considered never-marrieds undateable... prejudices which had been confirmed by experience.).

I do not doubt that many women DO ask these questions and that people are confronting some difficult situations with this "baggage." But emotionally unavailable men come in many flavors. And it seems too easy to me to provide advice to women who are dating... probably the most insecure people in the world. What makes widowed men so much more "difficult" to deal with than, say, divorced men? Or men who reached 40 without ever marrying?

So let's do a comparison of baggage. I married a divorced man and we spend more time dealing with his feelings about his 23-year marriage disintegrating and their divorce than we do with Gavin almost literally disintegrating before my eyes and his death. (Although the score does even out a bit if you start counting the time I spend on managing his posthumous career as an artist and the fact that I spend tons of time on volunteer work for widowed people like Widowed Village and the Soaring Spirits board. )

I've always wanted to do a comparison that went beyond "my husband didn't WANT to leave me." Abel has just published a huge list justifying why this is a legitimate area... some of the ways that widowers behave badly in the dating market. So let's tear in and see what we find!: 

Some widowers ...	Do divorced men do something similar?
Have shrines to their late wives in their living room or large portraits in other places in home or office.	No. Often the ex-wife has been cut out of the family photos and pictures are spookily absent. Sometimes this means there are no pictures of the kids, either, or that the divorce lives in hotel-room-like impersonal environment. Having some amount of old photos on display is a good idea if he and the late wife had kids. Advantage: widower.
Hold the late wife as a perfect saint who can never be spoken ill of.	Frequently bring up the ex-wife as a demon about whom no good can ever be said. Advantage: widower.
Keep the late wife's clothing in the closet or toiletries in the bathroom, or offer the new girlfriend their late wife's jewelry, clothing, etc.	No, sometimes the ex-wife's possessions have been burned or tossed from a window, though, or sent to storage without her knowledge. Advantage: widower.
... same for lingerie or sex toys.	Just.... ew.
Want to be buried next to their late wives.	Well, it would be nice if the widower would at least pretend that this choice got complicated. If they had kids, the old plan MIGHT still make sense. Advantage; the fresh start of the divorce'.
Have a bedroom in their home dedicated and reserved for the family of their late wives.	If it's a huge house and they had kids together... maybe. I think I'd find it hard to complain about living in a house with that much extra space.
Talk about how their late wife was a great athlete, professional, mom, and an all around perfect human being	Frequently divorced men share with their dates their feelings that their ex-wife was a skank, dumbass, or spendthrift. Both behaviors are tacky and unnecessary in most situations. Both widowed and divorced men should be able to talk about people in their past without cartoonish characterizations. Advantage: widower.
Organize and participate in 5ks or other charitable events in the name of their late wife	No, but sometimes people who've lost a child or parent or friend to a disease continue these activities, and is that weird?
Wants to be reunited with their late wife in the next life	Okay that is pretty weird, but isn't it a question of theology, like, are you healed when you get to heaven? Even if you had an amputation? (Sorry. Not my personal set of beliefs so I don't quite "get" it.) And it doesn't apply to divorce anyway, unless the ex-wife has also died.
Have the late wife's pots, pans, dishes, spices, etc. in the kitchen	Well.... yes. We use a lot of items that belonged to Mr. Fresh's first wife. Wasn't most of it joint property? Are we expected to replace EVERYTHING? (Plus we live in their house but dude, I KNOW that's weird, and it was equally my choice.)
Have the late wife's voice on their answering machine	Okay, I personally think that should be taken care of before you date, at least, by the time that person calls your home number. Advantage: Divorce.
Live in a house that has their late wife's touches everywhere	See pots and pans, above.
Have tattoos of their late wife that they’re not willing to get rid of	Blech, but isn't a tattoo supposed to be permanent? I have mixed feelings about tattoo removal... because what is a commitment anyway? Unless he's out of space for a new one with your name on it.
Constantly compare you or have family members that constantly compare you to their late wife	People "compare" me to Mr. Fresh's first wife all the time, and they compare him to Gavin all the time, but kindly, and without excessive characterization. We both do it, too, but again, most of the time, we do it gently and usually we're talking about behavior and not, say, waist size. It is hard to avoid, but "constantly" would piss anybody off. Mr. Fresh and I have had our issues with it.
Wear rings that symbolize their love for their late wife	See answering machine, above.
Make a giant six-acre heart-shaped meadow for their late wife	No. As stated in many examples above, divorced men do not tend to have fond memories of their ex-wives. I believe however that new partners benefit from displays of love like this.... not to mention tourists: the Taj Mahal was built to remember the Shah's late wife. (History does not record for us how that affected his next relationship or the other concubines, concurrent or subsequent.) Isn't it possible he would do something like this for you, too? Advantage: Widower.

I have to admit my "baggage comparison" isn't really as decisive as I might have wished. I realize that it's probably not reasonable to compare dating a widow (a nice normal one like me) with dating a widower, but I think widowed people generally are treasures in the dating world. (I only managed to find one widower when I was dating. It didn't go well, but it had nothing to do with his loss.)

So I tend to wonder, why is there no comparable community (and books) for those dating widowed WOMEN,given that they are 7/8ths of the widowed population? (Annie and Able share their thoughts on this here). "Dating a widow" is probably an even more popular Google term than "widower," but leads you only to spam, irrelevant or disreputable dating sites, and p0rn ... not to an entire movement. While there is some discussion of dating widowed women, most of it is pretty low quality and it doesn't seem to have any traction. Nor does it seem to generate this much controversy, even though widowed women talk about dating a lot. (A LOT lot.)

It still seems like an insult to my friends who are widowed men (who are frequently outraged by these blogs) to admit that there is something there... but surely there is. Perhaps men are more frequently bad daters, overall? Who knows.

There is certainly scads and scads of material about dating divorced men... but those men are so prevalent it would be impossible to avoid them. Which I suppose is part of the peculiarity... it IS possible to avoid dating widowers, and look at all this advice on WHY.

What do you think?

Camp Widow: Me reading at the Blog Slam (video)

I will have more to say about the first Camp Widow EAST, held this past weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC... but for now, here's this:

Schedule A: The Anal Retentive Widow

Look what I found while hunting for this year's tax information.... Notes from the anal-retentive widow, who used to do her taxes herself. Wait, I'm talking about myself in the third person again... which, I suppose, is only appropriate? It sure feels that someone else prepared this spreadsheet....was I this organized once? On the other hand, this remained buried the past five plus years. (On the other other hand, that's what we DO with yesteryear's tax schedules, isn't it?)

Whew. Don't ever tell me that I underthink anything.

Category	Type	Description	Condition	Value	Quan	Ext.	Action
clothing	pants	linen or linen-blend	v. good	$6	4	$24	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	pants	lightweight, dress	good	$8	2	$16	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	pants	lightweight, casual	good	$6	9	$54	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirts	dress, l.s.	good	$6	7	$42	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirts	dress, l.s.	okay	$4	5	$20	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirts	casual, s.s.	good	$5	5	$25	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirts	linen or linen-blend	v. good	$6	5	$30	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	brown leather	good	$5	2	$10	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	athletic	good	$5	2	$10	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	sandal	good	$5	1	$5	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	white canvas	okay	$3	1	$3	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	black plastic sandals	okay	$3	1	$2	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	black leather velcro	okay	$3	2	$6	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	coat	khaki windbreakers	v. good	$10	2	$20	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	coat	black wool	almost new	$4	3	$40	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirt	black hoodie	good	$5	1	$15	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shirt	sleeveless gray hoodie	almost new	$5	1	$5	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	black high boots	good	$15	1	$15	Value Village, July 2006
clothing	shoes	brown ankle shoes ll bean	good	$20	1	$20	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	shoes	painty black shoes	bad		2		tossed
clothing	jacket	wool tweed blazer	v. good	$18	3	$36	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	wool hats	good	$5	8	$10	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	wool scarves	good	$5	2	$15	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	warm cotton socks	good	$1	2	$8	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	wool socks	good	$2	1	$4	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	sets thermal underwear	good	$10	1	$20	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	pants	ll bean flannel lined chinos	v. good	$12	1	$12	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	set high tech thermals	okay	$5	1	$5	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	shirt	flannel shirts	v. good	$7	4	$28	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	pants	wool dress pants	v. good	$10	3	$30	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	red wool skirt (Supa's)	excellent	$10	1	$10	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	gray synthetic tunic	excellent	$10	1	$10	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	shirt	lt blue velour shirt (Supa's)	excellent	$5	1	$5	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	pants	green khaki pants	excellent	$3	2	$6	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	shoes	ll bean loafers	okay	$5	1	$5	Value Village, Aug. 2006
clothing	misc.	leather belts	okay	$3	5	$15	Value Village, Aug. 2006
Total	40					$445

So there is your answer to what I did all those lonely nights... a piece of my bureaucratic trash, and one even ABOUT what I threw away... Somehow I have a feeling this will resonate with some others, too, as one of my most popular posts (which I also thought was a throwaway) did.

It does make it easier, as housekeeping guru Don Aslett says, sometimes, to write it down before you say goodbye. I'm a born pack rat: this stuff is hard work. I read his books, including Clutter's Last Stand, multiple times to gain the strength (and techniques) to get rid of hundreds of pounds of stuff, and I'm still awful. (I'm fine, of course, with other people's stuff... which you might THINK this was... but no.)

The feelings I must have had as I put these items down in rows and columns... so much of that is left now as I review this. I am surprised to see that I really did give away so much of his clothing within a month or two (he died 6/2). The spreadsheet makes it seem "verified."

The brief descriptions are so evocative... some of the items reappear in my mind as I skim the list. I remember in vivid color, for example, the day we bought the "gray sleeveless hoodie" at H&M after a long search (it was from the women's department). Others are like-Gavin by their non-specificity: 9 pairs of "lightweight, casual" pants. I always teased him about his affection for his khakis, he was a little obsessed with finding ones made of really thin, sharp cloth. One year I'm sure I gave him a pair of chinos for Valentine's Day. What a picture of the two of us that tells, eh?

I'm shocked I had the pride to itemize socks at $1 a pair and at the same time, the disregard to throw away precious "painting shoes." I can still see their shape in a white plastic trash bag, like everything that leaves the house. Well, nearly everything.

This stuff talks. It really does.

And I only have about 40 boxes (and 200+ drawings) left...

Gavin's Final Valentine's Day

Dear Supa,

Tonight, I was browsing through Facebook and I noticed someone posted a picture of their kid making a valentine. I burst into unexpected tears as I was flooded with the memory of the valentines-making party you held in February 2006. I thought about a night I hadn't thought about in a long time -- how we made great art as expressions of love; how happy Gavin was. I wanted to share that memory with you.

(heart) (heart) (heart)
Nellie

I'd nearly forgotten too, so I cried, too. That last year, as things started more quickly to fall apart, I hosted a party. I invited everyone (not just artists... neighbors, and kids, and church friends) to come over and glue things together. I presented them with our dining room table, stretched to seat 10, covered with an array of blank notecards and pretty much everything red or white I could find (art supplies of every type, odd bits of fabric, beads) and every damn sticker in the house, including cows, tiny ants, and giant Hello Kitty decals. It was what we had.

We used to host collage parties once in a while; sophisticated and very drunken versions had been part of Gavin's bachelor artist life. They had an idea of "collage" as a philosophy of life, maybe the opposite of deconstructionism: find an object and put it with another, apply glue, smoothe the seams. There were quiet collages that called moods, and rowdy Mardi-Gras'-on-Bainbridge-board wherein the man (or woman) holding the glue would cut up and stick together pornographic playing cards, calendar pages, snapshots of strangers, candy wrappers, and their own discarded, preferably torn, drawings.

One of my survival instincts is: if you don't know what to do, invite people to be messy with you. February 14, 2006, was a day when we projected. We put our love down on paper and we used anything we wanted. My little girl, barely 2, created some notable compositions, quieter than I expected, each complete and clearly satisfying to her. Nellie, our beloved babysitter, came with most of her family. A few artists, a few beers, and we had a party.

That February was one of the months Gavin "lived" on the couch under the eroding spell of Nexavar... he was not happy most of the time. But that evening, he shone to see people. It was the right kind of energy to bring into the house.

I could not keep it together that February, as Gavin died, none of us could say the right thing, ever, but somehow, gluing things on paper and sharing our confusion with everyone I could find was the right thing to do.

(This year, we did a quiet celebration, Mr. Fresh and Shortie and I. We weren't fighting off any immediate disasters, but we could have ice cream with crumb cakes and I cut a few dozen strawberries into hearts to ornament the plates. Hence, the image above. This year, getting by, showing love, takes a different form. 

I have those valentines from 2006 somewhere, but I want to relish these cut up berries just as much because that's what this February has been about... plus they were delicious.)

Artwork: the breakdown

I have often said that I’m grateful that Gavin was an artist and that he left a concrete legacy — that he made a difference to literally thousands of people who look at a painting or drawing by him every single day. I say, it made it easier to throw out clothes like his old socks (although… he really did like his damn chinos). Because of the tons of artwork he created during his life time, I didn’t have trouble with which objects mattered to him or which ones would matter to me.

But that’s kind of a pile of garbage (as are many other things) now that I’m moving the last things out of his studio. Because when you get past the many layers of treasures that he created, there is still a lot of junk that was secondary. And even as great a genius as he was (Not really) (Gimme a break, I was married to him), it’s not worth saving every little thing he ever scribbled on. Except for some of it.

Let me give you a list of just a few of the categories of “stuff” and what has been their fate so far:

• Actual artwork, large sizes: went to professional, climate-controlled, secure art storage facility.
• Actual artwork, small sizes: moved to flat files which have been moved to my new home.
• His notebooks, letters, and sketchbooks: to Smithsonian museum libraries for their collection of “papers of American artists,” in hopes someday someone will write about his work.
• Sketches that were unbound, some rough, some finished, some with markings to help him enlarge them.
• Artwork by his friends: some hangs in our home, some will be sold. This work falls into subcategories: pieces I really like that hung in our home, pieces I didn’t like much that hung in our home, pieces that didn’t hang in our home, pieces I have never seen; pieces by people I never met, pieces by friends that were in loving trade, pieces by friends that were “gifts” that might not have made it in a situation of natural selection, pieces by people I actively disliked. Pieces he bought during “good years.”
• Art materials. Paint, not only the type he used. Turpentine. Half-dirty turpentine (fine for housepainting). Color pencils (a child of the 60s, he wouldn’t ever say “colored” pencils), boxes of broken conte crayons, soft pencils, hard pencils, china markers, 24 boxes of oil pastels that must have some story behind them. Most of all this went to the local college art department, whose 2 senior professors were his classmates there. Sheaves of luscious 100% cotton paper, pristine, wrapped up like nuns. FOR SALE!
• Furniture. Tables made specifically for his work, the right size, unfinished plywood and 2x4s. Two “puzzle” desks he built from a pattern in Popular Mechanics 30 years ago. Shelves for tools. The dust from 500 punk rock and opera LPs that I sold long ago for $1 each.
• Tools. Extra sets of screwdrivers (sets!? Who am I fooling.). Five hand saws. Thousands of nails and screws of the type no one ever needs. Extra brackets, nuts, clamps, and containers that I didn’t already claim for the new house. A compound miter box he felt obliged to buy when he was very, very ill.
• Art-related tools. Matte cutter. Copy stand. Two lightboxes. A projector.
• Empty frames. Frames with cracked glass. Replacement glass for frames that I don’t know where they are now. Frames that must be checked, lest a drawing is behind an old matt.
• Slides of most of the work he created during his 30 years, which were scanned and stuck on Flickr. Slides that are snapshotty… will be tossed.
• Snapshots. Includes snapshots that were source material for artwork, made and unmade. Snapshots that were “active,” on his desk, in the top drawer, for work that was finished in the past few years and for work he was contemplating. (Many are being scanned.) Family snapshots. Albums of family photographs, most of them without name or date information.
• Books. Do not get me started on the damn books.

The last items to be removed from his empty studio — just yesterday — was a clutch of large drawings stashed in his drafting table (which I didn’t even know had a compartment). Some I’d seen before, some I hadn’t. Strange that items from the “valuable” category showed up long after empty frames and packing material had already been given away. Spookily enough, this group includes his piece for September 11, which I knew was SOMEWHERE around here. Right. On. Time, dear.

Clearing this out has taken forever, and called up a complicated tangle of emotions: I get only fog. There’s some justice seeing things go where they “ought.” The frustration of friends who don’t seem to care for relics of their own relationship with him. My anguish over deciding which papers to send to the museum, and which to recycle. (They’ll do no one any good in our attic).

(Yes, it would be a hell of a lot easier if I believed the house sale would actually CLOSE. But I'm in permanent skeptic mode after what I've been through this summer). 

There’s slight zeal in throwing out pieces that I know he wanted to destroy. One evening a few months before he died, he came upstairs saying, “some day I really need to burn some of those early paintings.” It was practically his only intimation that he knew he wouldn’t last forever. I found this batch behind the hot water heater (I’m pretty sure those are the ones he meant). But I felt a passive aggressive compulsion to photograph them before bending them up, as if I wouldn’t even let his ghost escape their primitive colors and compositions.

I had no such compunction tossing out oversized newsprint pads of figure drawings from college. Several large unsatisfying, unfinished paintings were figural too…. Figures were always his least successful pieces. Even when he cloaked them in allegory and myth and removed them into abstract or performance realms, no one really responded to them. (With one notable exception.)

There are literally crickets chirping among the oddments that remain, furniture that’s claimed but not picked up yet, my checklists and tools to bring home, some packing materials, and six identical empty frames.

And I’m oh, so tired.

The Fish is Dead, Long Live the Fish

Winny, the third of three beta fishes (and the fourth pet if you count his best friend Fasty, the snail) has died. We are more or less certain that the fatal injury was incurred on a playdate by a mischievous friend wielding a cheap piece of jewelry.

Short Stack wrote this letter to the alleged perpetrator:

Dear Sophia, I'm sorry to say but you stuck paart of the necklise in the fish boll. My fish is dede now. It is not todally your falt. It's my mom's falt too!! Fish water: if you stick something (metle) in the fish water when you take it out, it is dry, that is how fish water works!

(Man, it was really fun to frustrate autocorrect there! Nyah, nyah!)

He's going in the garden in this scheme:

• Fasty: under a tiny rosemary which has since, um, not flourished
• Reddy (Bob): at the foot of a young redbud
• Winny: in the hole I dug for a new hydrangea paniculata
• Daddy: half, in the base of a young but noble elm tree (half still on a bookshelf).

(Sadly, the first fish, Goldy, was unceremoniously flushed because he died when I was out of town. But we're regretting that now).

Does this all help my daughter understand her great loss -- of her father -- any better? It's really hard for me to say. On the one hand, I think she's overly preoccupied with death. On the other hand, I just read that 7-year-olds tend to be a bit "goth" as part of their internal development. She's certainly not as bad as above mentioned Sophia (who believes that she is secretly a vampire and she keeps her little brother's secret powers in her jewelry box). She hasn't even been as sad as I'd expect after each loss, even though she expresses great affection and interest in each pet. And we are talking about fish here.

I mean, fish that she READS TO ("the Night Before Christmas"). Fish that she teaches TRICKS to. Fish that she has tried to get to pronounce the word "FOOD."

This kid knows how to love. She invests, even in small scaly things. And she doesn't get real upset, even while blaming me. It seems to me she has grown into her loss -- that she and I are more intermeshed because of it -- but it hasn't stopped her (or me) from attaching to Mr. Fresh. She is so at ease with having had two Daddies.

My child is such a comfort and a curiosity.

And she is campaigning for a cat.

Junk mail for the dead, or, YOU CANNOT BE TURNED DOWN!

Sometimes a piece of junk mail can really make your day. Widowed people are pretty used to receiving mail, email, and phone calls for their late spouses. At first, these situations can hurt, and be another occasion to "break the news" yet again… but as time goes on, the picture gets a little funnier: the dumbest marketers are the last to catch on. And once in a while, it's downright HILARIOUS.

Like the other day, when my late husband received a bulky envelope from United of Omaha Life Insurance Company. On the envelope there was no question who was being addressed — or what they wanted from him:
"Here's that second chance you hoped for, Gavin O'Shaunnessy!"

I open it up to find a direct and engaging, yet serious letter. There are lots of small official looking bits of paper, some that look like certificates, an easy card to fill out, and oh my — a prepaid business reply envelope. As a widow, I can really use that 44 cents somewhere else. It's just so hard not to talk back to this solicitation, which often puts words into my mouth, like: 

"Why didn't I get more life insurance when I was younger?…. "

Or maybe when I was alive?

"… And when it was cheaper?"

Well, um, gee, err… it probably won't get any cheaper than THIS.

"Now you've got the opportunity to get up to $10,000.00 graded benefit whole life insurance protection at an affordable cost… Your acceptance is guaranteed and your application is pre-approved."

Should I laugh or cry? When he was diagnosed with cancer, I would have killed for some life insurance -- he had just a tiny bit, because he'd lived with a heart valve defect and was self-employed. We couldn't find any that he qualified for. We kept our eyes peeled for envelopes like this. Too bad this offer arrived more than four years after he died. So, you know, I'm skeptical when the letter intones, in green gothic type,

"You can't be turned down."

RILLY? I say. Wannabet?

So I strongly considered filling the policy out. After all, as the letter states, "this insurance does not require a medical examination." And they make it so easy… that envelope was really (I had no IDEA) an IMMEDIATE ACTION ENVELOPE. The application was a big piece of paper, legal sized, two colors, but I only needed to fill out a few fields, and read the attached Post-it with Gavin's special preapproved authorization number: 519 858 890.

The forms were peppered with grown-up (if not senior-citizen) phrases like "beneficiary," "estate," "protection," "cash value," and an assurance that he'd be protected till age 121. (Suicide, of course, was excluded.) One table contained the word "GUARANTEED!" nine times in a row.

The whole package just left me feeling… I don't know. Confident. Comforted. Covered. Except for the fact, of course, that it was addressed to someone who couldn't, um, read.

Such a simple offer, a no brainer, with practically no effort required: payments could be made via "Easy Pay Option." I mean, even a dead guy could fill this out, right?

I laughed for a day solid, and so did my new husband, and I wondered if it would be even more fun if I applied, filed a claim, and had the requisite phone calls: this time, finally, with me at an advantage. Aren't they asking for it?

I mean, this is a company that bought a very very cheap mailing list. How careful could they be? They might even pay!

Then I realized that they would probably, at some point in the process, and possibly before issuing my check, ask for a death certificate. They'd probably notice that he was dead before the postmark date on my reply OR their offer.

It would probably be fun, but even United of Omaha was probably not dumb enough to fall for it.

And you know what? I've got better things to do with my time.

But it's hard to get this good a laugh out of a mailbox these days.

I adore FLOR: My Top Ten Reasons

Le result!

Here are the top ten reasons I adore Flor modular carpet tiles:

1. FLOR products are design forward and encourage your own creativity. FLOR has easy online tools to find the right product and (gasp!) design your own wonderful solution for any space. FLOR IS ART, man! And FLOR is kind: they will hold your hand while you dream.

2. FLOR suits your personality — whatever it is today. FLOR can be colorful and playful, or subdued and neutral. FLOR can draw attention or divert it. FLOR can sing, on-key or off-, or speak only when it's spoken to. FLOR loves modern, transitional, and traditional design schemes equally. (Parent company, Interface, also makes modular carpet tile solutions for commercial and contract use).

One of a dozen designs I made using FLOR's online tools.

3. FLOR's parent company, Interface, is a visionary combination of stewardship and profitability. FLOR products are 100% recyclable. Read more about CEO Ray Anderson. 

4. FLOR is economical and versatile. You can use it in basements and entryways. You don't need to get a matching "runner" style for odd-shaped areas. You can take FLOR with you when you move and reinstall it — in a different configuration, if you like.

5. FLOR is practical around pets, children, and others who leak a lot, which is to say, it's very easy to clean. Even spoiled, you can replace a single tile easier than pie. FLOR is low-pile and allergy-friendly.

6. You can use FLOR in ways you'd never use carpet. Because FLOR's low tack "keeps it down," you can create jagged edges or cut curves and not worry about anyone tripping on an edge. FLOR doesn't require accessories (like carpet pads or special cleaners) and its low-tack backing is kind to your hardwood floors.

7. FLOR is easy and kind of fun to install on your own or with a friend.

8. FLOR loves me and published my own little story.

9. FLOR is easy to talk about. I pretty much sell it to every person who visits my home, which includes several rooms made better with FLOR. I hand out catalogs at parties. I am somehow still fairly popular because FLOR is so great.

10. FLOR recently started a blog advertising campaign. I hope they see this post because I ADORE FLOR.

Market outlook

"Of course, these numbers would look a lot different if you'd sold it in 2005 or 2006," he said with the bright kind of regret that makes you know he had a good year that year. He was nice enough -- more than nice, really -- the real estate agent. The knife didn't even cut that deep.

But it's not that easy to hear that my single largest investment (which was really supposed to be simply HOME) is going to be worth so much less than I'd thought, hoped, and scribbled idly on the back of so many envelopes. 44 years and this is the one thing I did right: buying low. 13 years ago, wrapped up in my first life, trying to build dreams.

What we went through there! The tries to procreate. The birth of our child, the opening of his dream studio out there past the mud. What we ripped up and destroyed: the channel above was for our only really big home improvement, his studio, the muddy trench where they'd lay the electrical conduit. Then the cancer, the numb, the passion, the hope, the surgeries, the failures over and over again. The little things, the shingles, the thrush, our child's first words, the times alone home when he was in the hospital. 2006 was the year he died, but the entire year was downhill fast, and sliding, and murky.

Time went on, that bubble burst, and now, more than trenches, I think of the tranches of debt that made up the CDOs into which most of us lost money, and homes, and security. The financial foundation that fell out from under us, or was shown to be missing. I didn't care much about that economy, though it was golden and blooming while my honey fell apart and broke before my eyes. I didn't notice that bubble of real estate money, which was real for some, briefly, grew and grew and then leaked some air in a series of small burps. It hardly mattered among everything else; I was falling in love again. A few hours after Lehman fell, in fact, we went out shopping for a diamond.

Widows are bulletproof, did you know? Or at least full of contempt for the small things, and after what we've been through, everything's small.

But that trench is the earth bleeding, a wound that had to be dug to build something new, a something new that was never fulfilled and will soon be sold. For so much less. And with it, I'd like to let go of all those disappointments, all those losses, and everything that didn't work well. I'd like to heal, and patch them all, but I wish I had a bigger band aid.

Joyce Carol Oates, Janet Maslin, and the problematic second husband

Joyce Carol Oates with husband #2 at their wedding.

The more salient criticism many — not just Janet Maslin — have of the Joyce Carol Oates life/memoir is that this book, about her first year after losing her first husband, "fails to mention" that she was engaged to her second husband by month 11. Everyone rankled by this omission seems to think Oates' choice deliberate and disingenuous, inconsistent with their expectation (NOT the author's assertion) that this is an honest (and perhaps even complete?) account of her grief and loss.

One needn't be a remarried widow like myself to know that grief and great happiness — and that activity we so vaguely, distantly call "moving on" — can exist in one life at the same time. Feelings of great sorrow over loss can exist at the same time as we become attached to another mate, we can make large decisions while we are suffering (or even impaired). The surreality and vividness of living between and among two extremes is indeed one of the hallmarks of grief, as noted by commenters as revered as C.S. Lewis.

Joyce Carol Oates, Janet Maslin, and voicemail mementos

My little corner of the internet is  ablaze with responses to Janet Maslin's "brutal" review of Joyce Carol Oates' memoir, A Widow's Story, published yesterday (the review was published Sunday). So meta: all this commentary without anyone (except Maslin), as far as I can tell, reading the book itself, without responding to Oates' experience or perspective.

Because the review includes this sentence, which sounds — to me and many others — like an ad hominem attack, and thus, crossing the boundary of a book review:

A book long and rambling enough to contemplate an answering-machine recording could have found time to mention a whole new spouse. 

Let's deconstruct this. First, is an answering machine recording a small thing in telling a story? And second, is becoming engaged after a marriage a significant part of the story? Specifically, is it the kind of thing that, if you were writing a memoir about your loss, you'd be required to include in the book? Let's say, if you were one of the most prolific writers in America? And if one decides that you should put that engagement in your memoir, would it be dishonest to NOT talk about it in the same book as the voicemail recording?

So, first things first, because this is a juicy one, and it will take up the rest of the post (we'll do #2 tomorrow). I asked the thousand-or-so widowed people I talk with on Facebook:

Did you hang on to voice mail messages of your loved one? For how long? Were they important to you? If your late partner's voice was the GREETING on your voice mail or answering machine, did you leave it? For how long?

… And here are just a few of the tiny tales I received back:

My husband passed away March 6, 2010 and i still haven't had his cell phone turned off. It is the only place I still hear his voice. (Debbie)


I left my greeting for a long time...maybe almost 2 years? I just couldn't bear to erase it even though I know some people may have been made uncomfortable by it. Then something happened to it and I had the kids put a message on, I didn't want to replace it with my voice. I can still hear his message in my head, years later, clear as a bell. (Linda)



Never had any messages or his voice on a greeting all i have of his voice is the home movies, which took me 2 1/2 yrs to watch and can't even explain the feeling when i heard his voice after so long....(Rachel)

Yes, for some reason, I always kept several of his voicemails on my phone at all times. I have three saved. One was from 3 years ago when he called to tell me he knew the day before had been really tough (at work) and that he knew that day would be better and that he loved me. The second one, he just called to wish me a happy day. These messages are so important to me that I paid a company to save them and send them to me as MP3 files. So I have them forever, even if they get erased accidentally on my phone. I never get tired of listening to them. (Lorie)

My mother-in-law still has his voice on her answering machine, it was really hard at first but now 5 yrs later when I call I cross my fingers I get her machine just to hear him. (Dara)


I still have the "tape" from the answering machine. Its been at least 18 years. (Sandy)

I have my husbands voice message to me. It just says "I love you." Me and my daughter listen to it often. (Bev)



(My new partner) found Scott's cell phone in the drawer. "Hey Hon, I didn't know you had a Razor?" My response? "That's... Scott's phone, and I can't bear to get rid of it." I've let the battery go so I don't know if there is anything still on it. I'm thinking because the number is gone, so are the messages. There is (was) one from me on there. A happy one that he saved. (My new partner) found a place for the phone...I've always wished I would have saved the tape of my Mom's message. She's gone over 20 years now. (Lynn)



Wow, I was just looking at my phone today with the ONE message on it from Bill, he was going from one of his trips to hospital to come pick him up. I listen every once in a while. I am coming up on a year in 3 weeks. I was looking at the phone and trying to decide if I would delete it. I will miss him for everyday of my life, but I need to move forward. (Paula)



I have his voice along with the kids as my cell phone message and I never want to take it off. To me it's a way to tell the world, especially his family, that I will never forget. Even just talking about a simple message tears my heart. I miss him so much. (Danielle)

I don't have any voice messages, but I do have his cell phone, I now have people call me on that phone. There is one greeting saved with his voice on it. I play it every once in a while just so I can hear a little bit of his voice. Wish I had more. (Yoly)

At three years I still have my late husband as the greeting. He recorded it with the kids. Funny, I've been thinking it was time to change it but still I just love hearing his cheery voice every now and again. The voicemails are gone unfortunately when I changed the number. (Jenn)

My husband passed away almost 2 years ago, I am still paying for his phone so that I can call and listed to his greeting. It says he will get right back to me — I'm still waiting! (Celeste)

Didn't save anything on the phones, but we have Grampy reading a recorded book for each of the four grandkids, a video "interview" of him telling us stories from his life that our daughter made and best of all...during his last days I asked... him to "talk to me like you do when I'm sad or upset." I recorded that and a friend put it on cd for me. He just gave them to me last night and I listened in the car on the way home. I cried and cried, but it was just what I needed to hear. Every time I thought, "please say you love me again," he did! I've often thought I could go without seeing him because I have pictures and I could go without touching him because I have his robes that I can wrap myself in, but I wish I had a phone to Heaven so I could talk to him. Now with his message to me on the cd I feel I have that! (Michelle)

Are these tiny details not beautiful? Do they not illustrate emotional truths, about living without someone and having true human feelings? A modern convenience - a machine, a service — are a memento, giving us the warmth of a voice, otherwise uncaptured, saved nearly by accident on the phone company's server.

Would you leave out a detail like this from your story? This snippet is our generation's gold watch: an heirloom, a talisman, precious. Everyday and transcendent at the same time. Current, relatable, real.

I can bet you that that anecdote which Maslin picked on will be one of the parts that resonates the most deeply with readers.

How about art other than memoir? I'm honored to be able to share with you this special song about listening to a loved one's voice later on — sung by my sister after her loss, more than a decade ago — a song which she movingly performed at Gavin's memorial service:



And tomorrow.... I'll address Maslin's charge of "major omission" from my point of view as a remarried widow.

Very superstitious: one more omen, manmade

There was one more omen, and it was fairly early: after the second surgery, but before the failure of the first miracle drug, which was when I really started to ignore the drumbeat.

Gavin was a lot older than I was, and this ball was leftover from his childhood. Handpainted, blown glass, so fragile -- what glorious colors. It broke as I unwrapped it this last Christmas of his. Short Stack was nearly 2, so I don't know what I was thinking to hang this most precious of relics on our wobbly real tree. The last few pictures I have of Gavin are at this holiday, showing her his favorite wind up toys on top of a photography book, a gift that weighed as much as our little girl did. Little dear, she greeted our Christmas tree with joy as "apple doo!," for what reason, we never figured out (though it might have had one red ball on it).

He wasn't attached to this ornament, but it was one of my favorites, including from my history, and you may remember that I am a nutball about Christmas. And we had our eye intent on other round things, the pills that were promised after the new year, a long awaited investigational drug, just after approval, and in the nick of time: O holiday miracle medical.

I might have never forgiven myself for breaking it, but it's only a "thing," and I was sure, at this point, that I had even thrown out the photo.

But here it is. Isn't it lovely?

Very superstitious: the fox

And now that I think over it, superstitious beliefs have marked many of the momentous times in my life, especially the ones where some anticipation existed, and I sought reassurance or certainty or at least some hint as to outcomes: the weekend before my daughter was born I swore I saw a snowy owl landing in a meadow, off in my peripheral vision in a snowy field off the parkway. (It was the fluffy white belly typical of a Red-tailed Hawk, considerably less rare in our area, but equally showy).

And the fox. The last sign was a half-rotted fox, tossed behind his studio, possibly by one of the "uncles" of our immigrant neighbors in the rental house. Dead for weeks, it had appeared of a sudden, during a time no one wanted to go out, in the middle of a period when he was lying on the couch disabled by his penultimate "miracle drug." February, doldrums, and snow and ice everywhere.
It pointed out I was the only one capable — of anything, actually, at that point. It might have had rabies, and while my kid couldn't walk yet, those neighbors could, and surely didn't know the risk it presented.

It seemed tragic and sent by fate: because the fox had been one of the good omens of this land, this third-acre in the suburbs, across from the bus stop. I'd found its scat shortly after moving in, and checked on its hideaway periodically. When we built a front yard fence, we left a slit for the fox to get across the street and back the park at dusk, when we knew these animals, common but smartly invisible, travelled.

One night, years before pregnancy, late after a Christmas party, our headlights caught its rich rusty tail and glowing eyes. We were in awe of the chance we'd been given to catch this crepuscular creature out of its hours, on our territory for just a moment. Surely it was a sign; when it was still around, despite changes, in the midst of infertility, fox scat was a sign that nature went on around us, that good things could happen in busy places.

I found that dead fox with a start, as if a bell tolled dully.

Dread, dread, dread. I hated that I'd found it, and that it was my job to take care of it. But what to do?
A call to animal control generated the idea: it needs to be tested for rabies. They offered to fetch it if I picked it up in a grocery bag and stored it in my trash can, safe from the kids.

Our fox was dead. A quiet secret had been taken from us, perhaps by rat poison. I dwelled and dwelled, till animal control followed up: "The raccoon you found….. Was too decomposed to test for rabies, but couldn't have transmitted it either."

A raccoon. It was a raccoon. 

My rejoicing was genuine, a jumping inside, but lasted only for a minute, because my dear husband was so far gone, so tired, so low, with so many minor injuries, and the major ones mounting up... no folk religion could hide the truth from me anymore.

Now it was time to start actively pretending.

Very superstitious: domestic omens toward the end

Almost from the moment Gavin was diagnosed, I was more superstitious than usual. Perhaps it's the absence of any formal religion in my history, perhaps it's just a safer way to "admit" what I could see but not say: the writing on the wall, that he would die. A way to externalize the stresses, and pretend that the rational observations I made (a medical establishment without solutions for his cancer, a man running out of 2nd choice options, a husband under 100 lbs) were actually spooky, perhaps even a bit silly and therefore somehow less real.

Is superstition a sign that your rational mind is falling apart, or manifestation of uneasiness, or a way to really know what's true?

The first sign was domestic. Setting up my studio, above his studio, Gavin wrestled with reinstalling my Ikea shelves. "Ivar," he said. "They should call it Beelzebub. Damn thing tried to kill me again today." I'd installed it once already, inside what was now the baby's room, and it wasn't easy, but he was not very handy. I was 8 months pregnant and had given up on moving big pieces of wood, no mattter how bad he was going to be at it, he'd own all the heavy work from this point out.

One day an Ivar upright smacked him in the shin for a bruise that lasted weeks. It was only January, but when he was diagnosed in September I felt sure, somehow, that this injury had led to either the cancer (no one dared guess for us how long it had been growing in him) or its metastasis (which happened before we found it out).

Why? I needed something. LIke the what-if's of a widow whose lost someone to a car accident, I had to have alternatives, objects, other parties to place in my story, whether or not they could hold blame well or be held to account.

Then there were his careless placements of aesthetic objects that might be good or bad, depending. The first was a Bolivian devil mask I'd purchased for him one Christmas as an apotropaia.  (I think I felt entitled to buy one solely because I alone knew what the word meant.) I wanted it hung facing our busy front door to keep bad spirits out, but he thought that was corny, and hung it in his office. It was staring down his neck.

After diagnosis when he wasn't looking I unmounted it and hid it in the attic, then after he died, exiled it farther to his vacant studio, where the oil smells settled, cold. I wrapped it in silk to keep it from hurting anyone else. 


Another was a drawing of his own, one of my favorites, beautiful and striking but: one in a series of 5 illustrating Yukio Mishima's The Decay of the Angel. The drawing is called "The body ceases to give off light," and he hung it, again in his office, looking down on his right shoulder. What could be more wrong? He could not see the problem.

I let him stare at just the picture hanger for the rest of the year, till he'd gone so far downhill that he was never in his office.

To compensate, I placed two works of his that I'd sort of considered "too good" for us: his two lamps. I think he had to frame them himself, displacing lesser works and cutting mats, to get them to me, and unsell one that had been promised, for a pittance. But they were my favorites, and I hung them above the bed. The light that swelled from the paper in these drawings at least let me know we were doing our best, even if he didn't see the difference between one and another.

I've written about these lamps before -- they were a great comfort to me for a long time in that bed after he was gone.




(Now you, too, can see why he hated the way his work looked in photographs: they look gray, dim. These lamps are absolutely glowing, silencing more than one viewer with a gleam that comes from inside the paper).

Nature gave us one more sign, just awful in every single way, but that's a story for tomorrow.

My old house, my old days

Snapshot of yard and studio slot of old house, flat and shot on hearth tiles in new house.

I found this snapshot in a pile a little while after Gavin died, doing that endless sorting of condolence cards and photos and to-do lists that widows do. I called the picture "halcyon days," using a mental tone of irony and fondness. Some griefy evenings I couldn't stop looking at it while the microwave hummed. See the view from our back porch, golden light one tolerable summer evening after hours of tilling for a new vegetable bed, and a shed whose 1000 pieces and predrilled misfit holes nearly drove us batty. Look at that past! It was pretty, and ordinary, and all that land was mine.

I'm selling the old house, the one we bought together, where I experienced boatloads of disappointment. More than that, it's hard for me to admit that I scuttled off so many dreams BEFORE Gavin died. Those are the ones I'm grieving now.

I'm some combination of steeped in sadness and serious avoidance mode, using the driving-backwards-fast, corner-cutting, curb-jumping skillz that I gained after loss, merely to survive.

Approaching the five year mark, I'm finding all kinds of others in the same year are having similar experiences: like any anniversary, all the tension is in the approach. At least, so far. Thinking about earlier losses and this house a bunch — the house we failed to build into our dream house, the one we could barely afford that is worth a bloody fortune now, where we built Kevin his perfect studio, where I went to grad school.

Going over our home with an agent yesterday reminds me of all the dreams I dropped long ago. Losing a spouse young is the death of so many futures, so many opportunities, but I hadn't taken those seriously. Now I can't forget the ideas I had of being a business genius, a gardener of the too lush (we had a huge lot), of being parents easily, of accepting so much together without the rest of the world butting in.

Infertility chopped away at us, then cancer butted in really hard, feet first, so it would hurt the most.

Nostalgia IS a disease. Look at the light… I thought I could conquer all those weeds (I did push back a huge bed of English ivy, hundreds of square feet). I remember, now, what life was like before I was a parent: a long garden day, working till the last glimmer of the sun fell, then taking a shower without interruption, going to bed whenever I felt like it. We used to make real dinners. Gavin did all the cooking, I hope you understand how this affected the bargains I made…

I'm reminded of our inertias and disappointments as a couple. I thought he was handy. He thought I had no ambitions. Maybe I thought that, too. Either way, we barely painted the walls, never fixed the catastrophic kitchen, and the weeds coexisted with the plants I liked and the ones he liked, happily or not, but sharing soil for years. A year after I've moved out, the weeds have taken over everything again, and that annoying shed is the perfect studio we built for him, and for me, that we opened just before his diagnosis and so, has lain mostly fallow too.

I made a lot of compromises those 15 years, but holding my breath the whole time: it's taken me this long to find out how much that hurt and how my true grain runs.

Avoidance and bitterness are crappy tools to use in the new future. I'm hoping I got some kind of discount on the midlife crisis when I got the grief and single parenting package. I can't afford to be macho and insist that losing futures is no big deal. I should still have a few futures left!

Here's to what's next, and being brave enough to see the golden light of tomorrow.

Elizabeth Edwards (3): Dying at home

Elizabeth Edwards was sent home to die, and I felt pins of jealousy pricking into me. My husband died of cancer after two years of fight: you might expect I'd hear echoes of the last days and of the loss. But no. The hurts were petty, many, and sharp.

Because Gavin couldn't die at home, the way he would have wanted. And it was because of me.

And because of those nurses in the ICU, loving and kind to me and my little girl, who wasn't supposed to be allowed in, but they saw how his numbers jumped when she entered his windowed area of the ward. How his face would light up, so it was worth breaking any rule, despite the risks to her and him and me. After all, it was a temporary transgression: no one stays in that ward long.

Adela, my favorite, the head nurse ("Adele" had been in the top 10 names for our daughter), was the one to really work on me. "You say he doesn't want to die in a hospital. You need to work on getting his discharge as soon as you can." (Discharge was tricky because our oncologist didn't have privileges there; she couldn't reach anyone she knew, because it was a holiday weekend: Memorial day.)

I'd always heard that inpatient hospice was hard to get into. "We'd really prefer to take him home for these last few months," I said hopefully, not knowing they were thinking weeks (it turned out to be just days). Adela danced delicately around it, but within hours another staffer was more direct: "You can't handle having him at home."

But I'll have help. We have wonderful friends. 
Won't hospice offer volunteers? 
Look what we've been through already. 
I can do what's needed. I can do what's right.

He died 4 and a half years ago and now I accept what they were saying: I couldn't have handled it. With a small child, his senile mother, and insurance paying for nearly nothing… the brutal truth was I could not have changed his diapers in addition to my toddler's. It stung to hear it then, and still to say it, but: I hated being a caregiver, even to someone I loved who I desperately wanted to live. And it would have been more dangerous.

But deadliest of all was to stay in the ICU. They really wanted us out of there. And he knew they were treating him differently, that they'd given up. Instead of being the most-well person there, I think my husband picked up on the fact that he was starting to fit in. "The ICU is not a place for extended dramatic intervention. People just don't last here. It's for emergencies. When there's nothing more to do… well, it's not a good place to spend your last hours."

I just thought maybe they could make an exception and allow more visiting hours. It wasn't a bad place… look how attentive they were to me. What came across as care for me was really their strong desire to persuade me to save what was left of my self and family by getting him into hospice.

To Gavin, the ICU was a neglectful lonely place. His veil was starting to lift: he saw what was really happening. I am sure he was willing to go to hospice before I was willing to sign the papers. I said it was just so he could recover some strength, and I could have some respite, and then we'd bring him home. The timeline was rather Hallmark: months of adjustment, designed by my mind for my own emotional convenience.

None of us had any control over the timing, of course, not even Adela. All the staff, the hospice experts, everyone was off by weeks. He died four days after transfer. He'd been fighting that hard all along and he took the rest he was offered.

I was a zombie with a job: I told visitors to "please tell him that you'll take good care of me and Short Stack and Frances, and that it's okay to leave if he needs to." I was choking, and I was also saying, "it's good for him to hear that, you know, just in case."

My chief regret, my advocacy, is that we didn't start hospice sooner. We could have recognized that this disease in this man at this time was just too powerful. I know that living with denial is actually a good idea when you're faced with a terminal illness, but regrets have nagged me all this time. I like to blame Gavin and the endless positive fight at all costs, but a lot of the resistance must have been coming from me. I pulled over on the parkway to cry in angry helplessness on the way over to that appointment. In the end, I signed the papers out of sheer duty.

I was frustrated that everyone thought — knew — I couldn't have handled him at home. Finally, now, I accept that they were right. I give myself permission — that old me, the one who hadn't seen anyone die — to be an imperfect caregiver. I know my family is better off because Adela got through to me.

I was envious that Elizabeth Edwards had the chance to go home to be with family when my husband didn't.

But death laughs at all our petty jealousy: before I had the chance to write a blog post (never mind three!) she was gone. A woman who'd advocated for hospice didn't get much time to enjoy her loved ones outside the hospital. Her courage, her honesty, earned even her just the barest bit of peace.

We all deserve more than that moment.

My Day of the Dead: We’re not religious

If we aren’t religious, why did I sort through seven boxes labeled “holy objects” to get this smorgasbord? Looks like my faith vomited on the ofrenda. But it’s history and relic and color:

Top table, starting from 12:00:

• Stenciled virgin of Guadalupe on tin paneling, Christmas card from 80s by artist friend, Mark Clark
• Flanked by two ceramic virgins (local types) from the Aguilar sisters studio near Oaxaca, which we visited on our honeymoon

(Center) Otomi embroidered placemat (folded) from one of Gavin’s 70s trips to Mexico, which holds:

• Tiny lady of sorrows in black wood frame set up by Gavin for one of our home offerings
• Portrait of Gavin from my desk at my last job
• Gavin’s baby moccasins, Navajo, from when they lived in Albuquerque
• A special stone from his desk
• One of Frances’s many rosaries, this one in a neat little zippered leather pouch

Continuing from upper right corner:

• An important book
• Black Oaxaca vase, Gavin earlier trip to Mexico
• Tin fish which was our “kitchen god” from our first apartment together
• JFK pencil sharpener that used to live with the kitchen god on top of
• A cheat sheet with chords for all his old band’s songs
• A bronze award from a photo club in the 50s with red candles in it (used to be on kitchen shrine in our first house)
• Salt from Albuquerque salt-and-paper
• His yarrow sticks wrapped in some decorative Asian paper
• (Back to the left corner) Pepper
• Buddha
• Angel pin by Gavin, hand drawn on Shrinky Dink material
• Black Oaxaca pottery mug, earlier trip
• Shiva

Bottom table, from 12:00:

• Worry object I made in infertility treatment, red beads and milagro of baby
• Note I wrote to call baby
• Photo of him and his mother at one of her many October beach birthday parties
• Our enormous silver wedding rings we wore during the ceremony and reception, by artist friend Linda Hesh
• Two miscellaneous rubber duckies (Gavin had a “thing”)
• Male and female sake cups from Gavin’s desk
• Broken antique clock from Gavin’s desk
• Two lucky Chinese cats
• One of five paper mache skulls painted by little girl
• His daily wear wedding ring by Linda Hesh
• Another skull
• A lock of Short Stack’s baby hair
• My daily-wear ring
• A cup with a surprise duckie in it (art)
• Marigolds
• Another skull
• Another small black Oaxaca vase
• Arm milagro, one of scores of milagros from different countries
• Suede pouch (Frances) with a modest Navajo raw turquoise necklace in it

Arranged by my daughter, who believes in symmetry, even if it means the wedding rings are on opposite sides of the offering and the salt and pepper have divorced.

Still need to find something to represent my grandmother, something to represent Goldy (did I mention…?), and the skeleton crafts, two sorts, that we made over the weekend from Kim Go’s instructions. Something for Amy. Something for Don. And the Christmas lights from the attic.

Day of the Dead 2010: My ofrenda, Day 1

It doesn't look like much, does it? This corner of the sun room is where we're going to build our ofrenda, or offering (commonly known as a "shrine"), for the Day of the Dead this year. I'll stack up some furniture or sturdy boxes, cover them with cloth, add holy objects, and at the last minute, on Nov. 2, put out some food and drink for the souls of loved ones who have passed.

I'm spending lots of time sorting through 6 boxes labeled "holy objects," for precious things to recall my life with Gavin and his life before me. As I do so, and as I spend time remembering, I recall other losses: should there be an area for my father, dead 17 years now? Or my sister's fiance, gone now for 13 years? For my grandmother, who passed less than a year after Gavin at age 103 and a half? How about for Frances, Gavin's mother, my burden, my savior?

And what deity will preside over this sacred assortment? The Lord Ganesh and our Lady of Guadalupe, at the very least. That's who I can bring - we'll see who else shows up.

This week, in preparation, I'm going to BREAK and CREATE. The break will be, to not do what's easy and what I'm used to - ensconced in my new world of widowed people and my new husband. I've decided to invite some people I haven't seen in years - who were close to Gavin, and who I've been bitter or conflicted about - to join us as I raise a Rolling Rock in Gavin's memory. I won't let the world move on and think it's all over when you die, when you break, when you find new love. I'll share, and I'll try to stay open and listen, and what is harder than that?

And I'm going to create, because being back in the time when we were together reminds me of some dreams I've dropped. How great it feels, how natural, to stretch my eyes on bright colors, to make things, to find parts and figure it out and work it through with my own fingers. I've twisted up marigolds, smushed Celluclay into skulls, and repurchased a basic palette of acrylics.

As the weather cools, I can feel my pulse warming up... exercising those old art muscles. But that's just what rocks my boat... anyone can join us in our virtual online Day of the Dead celebration: will you?

Parenting your grieving child, #3: Q&A with the founder of Rainbows, grief support for children

Most of my mission online consists of peer support: helping widowed people connect with each other, share stories, and find validation and new friendships. Last summer, as part of an extremely active conversation on my Facebook page, it became clear that widowed people with kids at home wanted more: you asked me for the comfort of an authority on what to expect in your grieving children as they grow. I posted a quick signup and got more than 100 widowed parents showing their interest!

This series is the first outcome of your requests. I asked my friend, Suzy Yehl Marta, founder of Rainbows For All Children (LINK), to answer your real questions. Suzy is the author of “Healing the Hurt, Restoring the Hope.” Suzy has been working with grieving children for nearly 30 years. Rainbows has programs for children and teens, ages 3 to 18, in all 50 states and many international sites. Find a program near you by calling 1-800-266-3206.

This is the third of four posts by Suzy – one for each Tuesday in October. Questions were selected from those submitted by widowed parents on my Widowed Village page on Facebook. You can “like” that page at right, and ask your own question here. You can read the first post in the series here and the second one here.

Please see my note at the bottom of the post for details on how you can take a minute or two this month to “vote” online and gain financial support for Rainbows.

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At what point do you insist on making your child attend grief counseling? I never pushed it with my 18 year old and now am wondering if I am doing him a disservice by not giving him a safe place to express his concerns about our new family structure and his feelings about losing his ather. (Both he and my 14 year old son watched their father die of cancer 2.5 years ago).

I worry about their ability to form healthy relationships as adults now that they do not have a consistent male role model in their lives. I have no family where I live and my husband's family is absent. I am currently dating someone who has long-term potential but don't want to make this man feel obligated to help my sons. Suggestions?

This is a tough question because grief is a normal, natural way to process the death of a loved one. The death of a loved one impacts each family member differently. If the death was a homicide or suicide, other painful concerns and responses surface compared to the death of an elderly grandmother who was 90. Other factors that influence how a child is able to process the death is the age of the child, the family’s ability to talk together about the death and their individual feelings surrounding it, and the type of relationship to the deceased the child had. Most people do not need grief counseling, but rather need to learn more about grief and have the emotional support that enables them to grieve at their own pace, in their own way.

Grief counseling can be helpful but the best is if your sons and you to talk as a family on regular basis about the loss and actually take a “pulse” of how your sons are doing. Secondly, getting your sons enrolled in a grief support group with kids their age who have had a loved one die allows them an emotional safety to feel “ordinary”…their companions on the bumpy journey of grief. This support group needs to be led by a trained adult facilitator. Many communities offer such opportunities, as well as Rainbows for All Children, Inc which has programs in schools, churches, synagogues and agencies across the country.

You are wise to be aware that your sons need male role models/ mentors. As a single parent of sons, I sought out male mentors. The obvious ones were my Dad and brother, and you don’t have these options, I also enrolled my sons in sports (coaches), scouting (pack leaders) and asked husbands of friends to help me with teaching them things about being a man. Things from tying a necktie or shaking hands with a solid grip. Another great resource is Big Brothers. And lastly, I invited the school to be a partner with me… keeping me aware of needs or concerns that might arise that the teacher or social worker are observing. While your 18 year old is either out school or heading for college, your 14 year old has years left in high school.

I pushed myself to learn about the various sports and other interests of my sons. All three were so different which added variety to our family life and conversations. I learned over time while I could not fix their bikes or teach them how to pitch a ball, what sons need is a good role model of unconditional love, integrity, humor, consistency of values and expectations, as well as dependability.

You are prudent to not expect the man you are dating to be pressured into taking on this role. First, your sons may very well resent him for assuming the role of Dad or male mentor because he is not their Dad. This needs to develop naturally over time. Just having him around your sons and including him in family activities is a huge step. You did not mention if your friend has kids and if so, this may add more challenges -- and more opportunities -- to the situation.


Read the other posts in this series:
October 5, #1
October 11, #2
Or ask your own question.

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Please help support Rainbows programs!
Rainbows For All Children is participating in the Pepsi Refresh campaign. From Oct. 1 to 31, log on to the Pepsi Refresh web site and vote for Rainbows every day. And please help spread the word! With $250,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project, Rainbows will:

• Provide emotional support to 2,500 youth through 100 new sites nationwide
• Help children and youth strengthen problem-solving and coping skills
• Improve communication in their families and peer relationships
• Prevent destructive behaviors including violence and substance abuse.