Wills and Widows Taking off Their Wedding Rings

This past week I finished up the last details of getting all my legal affairs in order. I hated reviewing and updating the end of life medical directives and other stuff involved for when I die or get incapacitated but I guess I’d hate it more if I didn’t take care of this stuff and something happened. It’s a crap-shoot, really. You like to think your family will make decisions in compliance with what you’d want but the best you can do is to get your wishes down in writing and hope you picked the right person to hold so much power over you and your estate when the time comes. The lawyer, twice, seemed to enjoy reminding me that you can’t reach out from the grave and control what happens when you’re gone. I was good when she said that. I didn’t snap back that I thought that’s what I was paying her for---to string some fancy words together that mean I do get a say. I keep wondering when I’ll turn into one of those old people who has lost that filter in the brain that keeps us from verbalizing all our rude or inappropriate thoughts. Maybe I’m even looking forward to that day?

On the widowhood front, the biggest news I have to share is I stopped wearing my wedding band. It wasn’t a planned change. It just happened. I had taken my ring to the jewelry store for cleaning and polishing and by the time I retrieved it a couple of days had passed. That first day back in my possession, I put the band on and took it back off a dozen times and finally I put it away for safe keeping. It was a sad choice and it's one I’m not sure I’ll stick to. I don’t know. Maybe the idea to get it cleaned was all part of a plot that the subconscious part of my brain cooked up to get the conscious part of my brain to give the issue some deep thought.

In the widowhood circles I touch bases in there is no consensus on the right time to remove your wedding rings. Some women plan to wear them forever---I was in that camp---but a few have taken them off shortly after their spouses’ funerals. Still other women have taken to wearing their rings on a chain around their necks and others have had their rings redesigned into dinner rings. Some women switch their rings to their other hand and younger widows take them off when they start dating again. It’s understandable why the wedding rings dilemma is such a huge widowhood hurdle to cross. We take vows with those rings. And even though those vows include “until death do we part” the wedding band symbolizes undying love and that love doesn’t go away upon the death of a spouse. The feeling of being married doesn’t go away right away either.

It feels weird not having that wedding band connection to Don on still on my finger. I feel naked and maybe it will find its way back on my finger. I have mixed feelings that include the idea that taking it off frees my husband’s spirit, lets him know he doesn’t have to watch over me so closely anymore…or at least that is what I’m currently telling myself. I’m a survivor and it’s paired with the fact that Don had all his legal T’s crossed and I’s dotted before his disability and evidential death. He did his best to “reach beyond the grave” as my lawyer says you can’t do. And because Don tried to do just that, I have far fewer worries and complications than widows whose spouses ignored the reality that we all do die someday. 

The moral of my little story here is get a will and medical directives if you don’t already have them! Okay, I'll get off the everyone-needs-a-will bandwagon before it gets rolling at top speed. But first I’d like to say this blog entry was brought to you by a senior citizen who thinks she'll start practicing for the day when the "be nice" filter in my brain isn't working any longer. I'll start when the teenager next door chases after a ball that's rolling across my yard. I'm going to open the door and yell, "Get off my lawn!" He deserves it. He's the same boy who 10 years ago told me he didn't care how much I paid him to shovel my snow because he just wanted to help old people. ©

The Big Wedding Widow Style

This past Saturday I went to my first wedding since Don passed away. Actually it was a long weekend away from home to an upscale tourist town in the northern part of the state. My great nephew got married on a Lake Michigan beach with a reception on the tenth floor of a 139 year old hotel with a panorama view fit for postcards. From all I’d read about going alone to a big event like that for the first time after being part of a couple for so many years I was anticipating  all sorts of emotions---awkwardness, being sad or scared, feeling out of place and lonely in a crowd. But I was riding up and back with my brother and his lady friend, how bad could it get? I was staying at my brother’s cottage with a boat load of family. How bad could it get?

Packing for the trip I thought about taking my locket with some of Don’s ashes inside, thinking if I kept him close to my heart the whole time I wouldn’t feel like a lost lamb surrounded by celebrating couples. But it didn’t look good with my dress and as I debated the wear-it-anyway question it struck me that I was being a king-sized, melodramatic widow. If I had thrown the back of my hand to my forehead and dropped down on a fainting couch, it wouldn’t have surprised me. A cartoonist would have drawn me as a Victorian lady covered from head to toe in black with a tidy bun at the back of my head and me clutching a heart-shaped ash urn locket the size of a box of a Russell Stover candy. What to do. What to do. That scene in my head finally made me smile. I was being silly to worry. I put the locket back in its box. I was a big girl. I could go to a place where a good share of the guests would be related. And for the bonus round I could even have a couple of fuzzy navels and not worry about being the designated driver for the first time in twelve years.

The biggest problem I had getting ready for the trip, though, was finding a kennel for Levi. I interviewed three before finding one I trusted not to seriously damage my little guy beyond repair. The first kennel I checked out had 15 or 20 dogs all running wild together in a sun drenched field on a 97 degree day. Levi likes the air conditioned comforts of home too much for that. At the second kennel the owner had forgotten we had an appointment and in the 20 minutes I waited around I discovered I could have walked right in an open garage door at the back of the building and let all the dogs out to play in traffic or worse. The third kennel passed the worried mom test and I was confident I’d found a weekend sitter who wouldn’t be spending all her time making prank calls involving letting Prince Albert out of the can. If you don’t get that joke then you can rejoice you’re not old like me.

The weekend was a wonderful break from life as I’d come to know it in recent months. I had such a good time. I laughed until my sides ached and the only time I got teary-eyed thinking of Don was during the exchanging of vows. At the reception unbeknownst to me my niece, niece-in-law, great-niece and assorted other relatives had all plotted to get me drunk and they kept the flow of champagne punch coming my way. There wasn’t enough liquor in the punch to get a mouse drunk but eight glasses later---which was seven more than I’d normally have---I was on the dance floor trying to keep up with the kids doing the Macarena. Don once told me I looked like a refrigerator on a dolly when I roller skated---he could literally skate circles around me---and while I was dancing the thought crossed my mind that I probably didn’t look much different trying to make my old bones find the clave rhythm. Hey, Macarena!

The bottom line? It was a beautiful ceremony, well-written and perfectly timed around a rain storm just off shore. The reception was fun and the stay at my brother’s cottage gave me a chance to spend some quality time with people I don’t see as often as I’d like. Thanks to my family who surrounded me with love, I made it over the widowhood hurdle of going to my first big social event without Don at my side and I not only lived to tell about it but I had a great time. ©

When Are You Getting Married Again, Widow Lady?

An old friend the other day asked me if I’m going to get married again. The question annoyed the heck out of me and it felt like an invasion of privacy especially since he asked it in front a third person I barely know. It took years to builds the kind of relationship Don and I had and I’m not interested in getting married again just to have another warm body in the house. But I tried not to let my annoyance show when I replied, “No.” Evidently that wasn’t a good enough answer because the next words out of his mouth were: “What’s the matter, once was enough?” I wasn’t sure how to take that second question and when I answered I felt like I was speaking the last lines in the movie, Secondhand Lions. I repeated my answer twice with an entirely different inflection the second time. In the movie the sheik’s great-grandson had asked, “These two men from your grandfather's stories, they really lived?” to which the adult Walter (played by John Lucas) answered, “They really lived.” Then a smile spread wide across on his face and he repeated, "Yeah, they really LIVED.”

“Once was enough,” is what I told my prying friend followed by, “Ya, once REALLY was enough.” I doubt my answer adequately expressed how I felt---Lucas got to rehearse his delivery and my smile was forced---but I couldn’t help thinking about it on the way home. Do people really think you can replace a 42 year long relationship so easily and be thinking about doing it when you’re only six months out from your spouse’s passing? Coming from an old friend the question hurt and it accented the fact that Don was the only person on the face of the earth who truly knew me---how I think, what my weaknesses and strengths are and how I hate being put on the spot in front of strangers.

Get married again? Not without a waterboarding, a case of amnesia or a proposal from Matthew McConaughey and Brad Pitt on the same day. Matthew or Brad? Yup, that choice might entice me to give up my plans for a new life filled with over-indulging in artsy-fartsy activities and Scottie Dogs Licorice, but no man in my age bracket could. If my friend picked up on my annoyance of his marriage questions, he probably would say I was being hyper-sensitive. Widows get accused of that all the time but, to me, asking a question like that was akin to asking an amputee if he’s going to get a new arm. I always think of good answers like that hours after it’s too late to deliver them. Now I’m prepared for the next getting-married-again question that comes my way. I will use a reply borrowed from another widow: “I don’t need to get married again; I got it right the first time.”

Having vented what I wanted to in the above paragraphs I realized this blog entry was too short. So I consulted my friend Google to find a quote to go with it. What I found along the way was directions for “how to marry a widow.” I kid you not. There really is a page at eHow with that title. Step one, it says: proceed with caution. You think? I find that amusing and wonder why that step doesn’t apply to all people getting married. Do people really throw caution to the winds when they get married the first time? No one could ever say that about Don and me. We dated forever first. Though I guess I understand the point of step one. It means proceed with caution because you’d be marrying the widow’s family as well as the widow…and let’s not forget that ghost hanging over her shoulder. ©

"Lost love is still love,” Eddie from the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven said. 

“It just takes a different form, that's all.

You can't hold their hand, you can't tousle their hair.

But when those senses weaken, another one comes to life.

 Memory.

Memory becomes your partner, you hold it, you dance with it.

 Life has to end, Eddie, Love doesn't."