The Widow and The Lone Ranger

“I’m living a strange half life.” That’s a line from a movie I saw recently and it was said by a divorced guy about his single-hood. He had a beautiful home, a job he liked and friends but his life lacked spice much like the salt-less broths served in hospitals. That movie line spoke to me and about me. At times I feel like a sailboat with no wind to push me along. If you’re on a sailboat with no wind sometimes it feels good to drift and have an excuse to relax but other times it’s frustrating if you have somewhere to go but you can’t get there. As a widow, I feel like I have somewhere to go but I don’t know where that is and the drifting isn’t helping me discover my destination fast enough. I’m old! I want to be content again.

This week marks my 18^th month as a widow and one more month to go before I’m at the end of the Second Mourning Period (if I was living in Victorian times, that is). In this century we don’t formally recognize the Second Mourning Period, but I strongly believe that custom never should have gone the way of afternoon teas, butterfly collecting and petty coats. Be that as it may, this seems like a good time for me to write a progress report on myself. So here it goes….

My emotions are no longer raw like they were in the first six month of widowhood and even less so than at the year marker. It’s rare, now, that a crying jag will hit me out of the blue. I can even listen to the Prime Country radio station without every other song churning up unbearable memories which most widows know is a big hurdle to cross. Still, I have a few moments on occasion when I choke up like last week when I was cleaning in my closet. I had run across the half dozen shirts of Don’s that I’d saved when I packed up the bulk of his clothes to take to the Salvation Army. But I’m a strong little widow, don’t you know, so last week I bucked it up and added a couple of those shirts to my ‘donate’ pile---but not without regret and sadness that I’ll never see Don wearing them again. If you noted a hint of sarcasm in the way I’ve just characterized myself you’re not mistaken. I am no stronger or weaker than other widows. We are all just in varying places on the grief timeline. All and all, I’m doing well. Don’s ghost no longer seems present in the house which is both sad and probably a healthy sign at the same time.

How am I doing on meeting people, trying to build a circle of friends, which is my biggest challenge in widowhood? Not so good. It’s still hard not to have a sounding board and someone who cares how my day is going. "Volunteer!" so many people told me to do which prompted me to turn in an application to work at a small town museum opening up soon. Unfortunately the time I spent in an arm sling is the time when they moved out of their old, cramped museum and into the new building so I couldn’t help with the move. This week I went to their first organizational meeting regarding a fund raiser auction planned for the fall. Only five people showed up. I had hoped for a group big enough so I’d have a better chance of meshing with one or two others. They tell me more people will show up to help as we get closer to the auction. Oh, well, at least I’m trying.

I’m also still going to the going to events at the senior hall including the monthly Movie and Lunch Club. Today we saw The Lone Ranger. In IMDb’s mini blurb on the movie they wrote, “Native American warrior Tonto recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid, a man of the law, into a legend of justice” and they labeled it an action adventure western. What they failed to say is the movie is a genuinely funny film. Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger were perfect casting and even Silver, the white horse, brought some great laughs from the audience and my group of ten. In the last fifteen minutes of the film, when they finally started playing the William Tell Overture, the Lone Ranger’s theme song from the radio, movies and TV shows of my youth, we were all sitting on the edge of our seats and laughing at the fast-paced action. We left the theater upbeat and in a happy mood. At lunch one of the ladies said she thought you had to be our age to catch a lot of the humor but few of the other ladies agreed with her. But one thing we all did agree on is that this version of The Lone Ranger is well worth seeing, especially if you grew up in the 30’s, 40’s or 50’s when the serialized stories of the Lone Ranger and Tonto were so popular. “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” ©

The Looming First Anniversary

The first anniversary of Don’s passing is coming up on the 18^th and it’s hard to ignore. I’ve got an increased number of blog entries lately to prove that I’ve been trying to work through the emotions this benchmark brings with it. Some widows call it a sadiversary. But society doesn’t call the anniversary of Pearl Harbor or 911 sadiversaries, so that word doesn’t work for me. It might work for Hallmark, though, giving them a whole new line of greeting cards they could market and maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. They could sell them in sets of twelve to cover the first year of widowhood. I doubt there’s a widow on the face of the earth who doesn’t fixate on the death date each month during the first year after her husband passes. It would be have been nice during 2013 to get a card in the mail on the 18^th of every month saying things like: “It’s your sadiversary, feel free to cry all day” or “It’s your sadiversary call if you want to talk” or “It’s your sadiversary. If you decide to jump off a cliff, wear a frigging parachute. We love you!”  

One year has come and gone, now what? Societal norms suggest that we quit marking the months and start marking the passing of time in years like children do who’ve passed their second birthday. Why do they get monthly markers past their first birthday but when someone died, we just get a year of doing that? Is that fair? The more I think about the Victorian custom of the ‘second mourning period’ (see blog 1/5/13) the smarter I think they were regarding understanding the human experiences called grief and recovery.

Yesterday I made reservations for ten events taking place at the senior hall over the next three months. One of those events is a cooking class titled, “how to cook for one.” That should make my doctor happy since I’ve been cooking and eating for two without Don in the house. How many punches do I get in my Widowhood Card for signing up for all those events? How many punches does it take to fill it up so I can throw the card away and pronounce myself cured of the curse of living in the sea of sadness? I want rules. I want Victorian widowhood traditions. I want to know if it’s Saturday this must be Paris.

One of the events at the senior hall I signed up for is a mystery tour. A bus picks us up at 9:00 and brings us back at 4:00 and what happens in between is a secret. A lot of people say these trips are exciting but, for me, just the thought of not know where I’ll be all day brings anxiety. Why? As Don’s caregiver and the head of the household for twelve years I’d been in total control of our lives. I’ve been accustom to micromanaging and planning. It’s how I manage stress the best. It’s how I got through a lot of tough times. Micro planning became my security blanket. For me to turn control over to someone else for an entire day, well, that’s like reaching the thirteen mile marker in a twenty-six mile marathon. Not that I know what running a marathon is like but I envision cheering crowds and people reaching out to hand you water and a feeling of pride washing over you for making it to half way point. When I get to the end of my second mourning period in September, I want to feel that kind of pride in myself. In September I want to look back over the first nine months of this year and feel like I just gave birth to myself. See, I’m still trying to micromanage the future. ©

Sea Child -

Am I still adrift in the Sea of Sadness,

Or am I standing on the moonlit shore

Waiting for the tide to change and usher

In a foggy-fingered child of mourning?

With the sounds of earth coming alive

What if on the waves a child did ride

And grow anew with the sun as it climbs,

What should we call this bean of the sea?

Do I call her Me or do I call her You,

This girl with the watery-eyed mother

And father sad at the bottom of time

Do I take her hand or wave good-bye?

by Jean Riva 2013 ©

"Adrift" painting by Anne Packard

Traditions and the Second Mourning Period

Okay, it’s a new year, a new day. The dog’s been fed, the dishes are washed. The house is clean and my day planner is blank and screaming at me to write something down. What should I do, where should I go? I know! I’ve had a burning desire to buy crystal and porcelain beads to take to a woman who makes necklaces for widows. Necklaces that incorporate your husband’s wedding band. How cool is that?

It’s amazing the number of ways we widows find to memorialize our spouses. Quilts are made of favorite shirts and teddy bears for the grandchildren, too. Christmas ornaments with photos are created along with video slide shows to play on computers. Songs and poems are written by a talented few. And let’s not forget the memorial bricks and trees that are bought for city parks, and the marble grave markers placed in cemeteries. Then there are the donations made in our spouse’s memory. Some widows even have synthetic diamonds made from cremated remains. I have an ash urn locket to wear and a glass jar containing stones, a feather, shells and sand picked up on the day we spread part of my husband’s ashes at the beach. What am I forgetting? I’m sure there are many more ways that widows---Oh, gosh, how could I forget blogging? We tell our husbands' stories mixed in with our tears.

In the 21st century we don’t make rings and pins out our deceased husband’s hair the way they did in Victorian times and we don’t wear tintype photo pins like they did in Civil War times. We don’t wear amulets bags with a token inside to touch and send prayers off to the gods like some American Indians tribes once did. But what we do today to keep a loved one close at heart serves the very same purpose. Mourning traditions that give you something to touch have survived through the centuries for a reason. We humans need to feel connected to our pasts.

At one time in history, widows wore brooches of black cameos set in gold during their ‘second mourning period’ which was defined as the next nine months after their first full year of widowhood. It was during this period when Victorian widows could add minor ornamentation to their black dresses---a ruffle, a bit of lace, a touch of gray---and they could start wearing fancy mourning jewelry. And at the beginning of the10^th month through the end of their second year of widowhood plus one month Victoria women would phase color into their wardrobes. Strict rules that I kind of wish society still followed. What can I say, I'm old fashioned.

If I was living during those times, I’d formally be starting my second mourning period on the 18^th of this month and as strange as it might sound to those who haven’t gone through losing a spouse, it seems nature and appropriate to call it that. There is a discernible shift in emotions after getting through all the ‘firsts’ that take place in the first year of wearing the widow label but you’re far from be healed inside. Sadly, our modern world no longer acknowledges this second mourning period. Get over it and move on with your life! widows are told. Well, duh! What do you think we’re trying to do? In widows’ circles, though, this second year that no longer has a formal name is still recognized instinctively by most women as a time to start rebuilding our lives. It's a nine month void in between heart-wrenching grief and finding a way to add color back into our lives. At least I hope it works that way for me. And I can't keep wondering why the Victorians picked nine months for the second mourning period and not eight, ten or twelve. All I can come up with in my musing is that it somehow ties into how long it takes to grow a life in the womb. Victorians were big on symbolism.

Shortly after my mother died in 1983 Don bought me an antique, second mourning period cameo and I’ve worn or carried it to every funeral I’ve been to since. Now that Don has passed, too, I have a dilemma in the jewelry department. If I wear all of my memorial jewelry to the next funeral I go to I’ll look like a Boy Scout with a chest full of badges. I’ll have my black cameo, my silver urn ash locket, a beaded necklace with Don’s wedding ring incorporated and my widow’s Word of the Year courage necklace. Oh, my! Take a memo, world: No one I know better die soon because this jewelry dilemma of what to wear to the funeral is not a choice I am ready to face yet.

All kidding aside, mourning jewelry has been around since the mid 1600s. So don’t let anyone make you feel that it’s weird or obsessive if you’re drawn to this kind sentimental remembrance. It might make others feel slight uncomfortable when their “crazy” old aunt, friend, mother or sister is flashing one of these widowhood traditional pieces. But one day they may sadly understand there is comfort in traditions that connect us to our recent past and to that of our ancestors. Having an object so close at hand to touch like a worry stone calms the mind, gives us strength and reminds us that a love remembered is a love we still have. ©