The Widow at Thanksgiving Time

It’s hard to believe this Thanksgiving will be my fourth one since Don died. Like most widows probably get, I got my share of invitations the first three years---family who didn’t want to see me spend the day all alone. Heck, one year I even got an invitation from a Red Hat Society sister who said, “We have so many people, no one will notice one more.” I can laugh about that now but I think I can speak for all widows when I say that being a guest in a crowd of strangers who don’t notice we’re in the room ranks right up there with getting a full body waxing from a hunky Swedish lady who speaks no English and wears a strange smirk on her face as she works on our privates. This year there were no invitations. And that’s okay. I am woman. Hear me roar that I’m in charge of my own happiness or lack thereof. 

On a widow support site where I’m an occasional lurker one of the widow bloggers wrote that people have quit asking her to holiday gatherings. Who she thought were good friends and close family, she said, she now thinks were only asking her out of duty and not out of love, so she’s saying goodbye to those relationships. Say what? To me, that’s akin to suggesting that it's other people’s responsibility to fill the empty hole in a widow’s life. Where is the appreciation for people taking time take out of their busy lives to be there for us when our grief was fresh and having done so, should we expect it to be their ongoing, no-expiration-date responsibility to cure our holiday blues? Maybe they have newly minted grieving people to invite. Maybe they are going away instead of hosting this year. Maybe their family size is increasing and they no longer have extra space. The ‘maybes’ are endless, so why take it personal? Sure, holidays can be bittersweet. We remember the happy years when we had a close relationship/spouse in our lives. We remember the joy of shared laughter and fellowship with people we loved. And if we give into it, it would be easy to get jealous of others who still get to enjoy those things but is that really in our own best interests? Say it with me: "I am woman. Hear me roar! I’m in charge of my own happiness of lack thereof."

I miss turkey, though. At the senior hall luncheon I managed to trade plates with another person so I could get all dark meat. (Enjoy trading while you can. Once we get to that nursing home they might not let us elderly folks do that.) I was in nirvana eating it and I’ve figured out a way to get leftovers for turkey sandwiches. I bought a package of three turkey legs, then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why the turkey processing plants put three and not two or four legs per package. Are turkeys so pumped up with hormones and chemicals that they grow an extra leg? Are some of them born with only one leg? Why? Why? WHY? I really want to know. I also bought a five inch pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Cut it into four pieces and put it in the freezer. Someone came along and ate all four pieces---I think it was Levi the Mighty Schnauzer---and now I have to buy another if I’m going to have one for Thanksgiving. Living alone has its perils. There’s no one around to blame your dietary sins on, but I try. "Levi, you are such a bad boy!"

At the senior hall luncheons we are led in prayer by a woman who is extremely caring and kind but her prayers always leave me wondering when someone will object to their decidedly non-inclusive nature. Something a little more non-denominational would seem more appropriate with 115 in attendance. As I worked on ideas for this blog I got to wondering what Google would turn up in the way of Thanksgiving prayers and all I managed to find is something that made me mad. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Mark 11:24” That’s from the new international Bible version but all the other versions say pretty much the same thing. It made me mad because millions of people have been praying for peace on earth for eons and with the recent terrorist attacks in France and Mali it feels like we’ll never achieve it. I didn't find a perfect, non-denominational prayer but I did find something I like that was written by Hesham A. Hassaballa, a Muslim American internist and the author of A Guide to Islam. In his prayer for peace he wrote, “A cynic (or realist) will say that this day is still a long way off. Yet, with God all things are possible. Thus, during this season of giving thanks, I raise my hands up in prayer.” Amen to that twist on Mark 11:24. Hesham’s Facebook page, by the way, has some interesting reading. Google is crazy. You never know where it will take you.

Since I can't have peace on earth any time soon, as a widow I still have other things to be thankful for: 1) I am healthier than I was last year both in mind and body; 2) My brother's cancer treatments end this week---he's doing well---and everyone else in my immediate family seems to be healthy and happy; 3) I have choices in life that many others living around the world don’t have; 4) I have a past worth reminiscing about and a future worth dreaming about; and last but not least, 5) I am thankful that I am woman and I'm in charge of my own happiness or lack thereof! ©

“Your life is now. Don’t miss it.”

a line from a Hallmark movie playing in the background

Crazy Old People and Me

I’m glad Levi is a dog, not a cat. I don’t dislike cats---that’s not it---but as a widow I wouldn’t want to be perceived as a crazy cat lady widow who spends her days talking to her four-legged mouse trap. There is something more ‘sane’ about a woman who talks to a dog rather than a cat. At least that’s what my handbook on aging tells me. This occurred to me while the woman from my new house cleaning service was here and I realized that I spend entirely too much time making ‘comical’ comments to the dog. “Did you park any barf in the corner of the living room this week, Levi? No? You’re such a good boy.” Why was I doing that? The answer, I decided, is because I’d spent the last twelve years of my husband’s life saying and doing outrageous things to make him laugh. I had become the entertainer-in-chief at our house since his stroke where before then---when he could still talk---he’d been the entertainer-in-chief.

The girl the cleaning service assigned to me only cleans houses two days a week. The other three days during the week she is working on her master’s degree in human services. She wants to be an alcohol and substance abuse counselor. So I figure she can handle one elderly woman who makes bad barf jokes while she’s in earshot. But if I was a paranoid old and crazy person I’d think she was there to spy on my mental health even though she seemed more interested in dust bunny wrangling than in my conversations with the dog. I was impressed, though, by her life goals and so thankful she can speak English. I had envisioned them sending a recent immigrant and I’d have to relive my days of playing charades with Don to understand stand things like ‘where do you keep your toilet brush’ and other important stuff germane to her mission to make my house sparkle.

But the barf in the corner joke got me to thinking about that line you cross when you become a crazy old woman for real. You can say things when you’re young that you can’t say when you’re old without people looking at you like your brain cells are dying off. And there is nothing worse that a pitiful look from someone who thinks you’re so lonely you actually believe your dog is human or that you’d take in every stray that crosses your path because you think animals treat you better than people. Lord, I really am struggling not to on a shopping spree down to the humane shelter. I wonder if they have a support group app for that at Apple? (Levi, by the way, does have a corner where he does all his barfing. I’m not making that up. He’s a very consider little bugger.)

At least I haven’t crossed the crazy-on-steroids line like a guy in my state did recently. He had told the funeral home he would deliver his father to the cemetery to save money. Instead, he put the body in his freezer. Authorities recovered the decease unharmed after finding the empty casket in the back of his son’s station wagon. They were at his house to check on why the guy never showed up at the cemetery for his appointment with the sexton. It seems the son thought he could resurrect his father back to life through prayer. I don’t understand that kind of faith in the power of prayer, but then again I doubt few people can. As near as I can recollect resurrections have only happened a handful of times in the whole history of mankind. Or so they say. I don’t keep up on current events like I used to do. But I suppose if you overdosed on reading about the Egyptian god, Osiris, or Jesus or the Greek mythology of the phoenix rising from the ashes you could believe in bringing back a loved one if you wanted it bad enough. Then there’s that whole karma thing to think about which is where Don and I placed all our bets.

I wonder what a sanity hearing for a man who thinks he can pray a loved one back to life would be like compared to a hearing for an old woman who hoards cats. Care to place a wager on who would come out ahead? Volumes have been written about the universal resurrection at the end of the world and about the resurrection of individual souls before then. A Clarence Darrow type could probably get the guy off. But a lawyer representing a lady who collects four-legged critters would have no scholarly evidence to offer that could her keep off the county’s crazy widows watch list. And that, dear friends, is one more reason why I need to stay away from the humane society. ©