Starting With A Blank Slate

I guess I thought it would be like breaking up.

But losing a spouse, agree women who have experienced it, isn’t like ending a relationship or seeing a grandparent or parent die. It’s like losing half of your soul, half of your identity, half of the meaning in your life.

I cannot imagine what it must be like after 30 or 40 or 60 years of marriage.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I don’t have a script: I don’t know how I feel, let alone how I’m supposed to feel.

Because I am a writer, you might think I’d journal. I don’t. I write these columns to you, because maybe you’ve been where I am or will end up here. I know I don’t know it all - or anything, really. But it is sometimes comforting to realize you’re not alone, not crazy, and someone understands what you’re experiencing.

For that comfort, I am relying heavily on my friend Abby, who lost her husband 15 years ago. She was the one to welcome me into the “widows club” and explain how membership works:

People won’t know what to say. Sometimes they say nothing - and you wonder if somehow they forgot or didn’t notice. Sometimes they try to connect with stories about dead pets or when Great-Grandpa Stoker died in the Old Country. The best thing to do, I think - at least right now - is just say, “I’m sorry for your loss” and then talk about whatever you’d ordinarily talk about.

Trust me, I’ll talk about Larry if I want to - probably more than you want to hear.

People will “peer” - not in a mean-spirited way but just wondering how you are and whether you plan to lose it in the next five minutes. I can’t tell you when I’m going to have “a moment,” because I don’t know. It happened the other day at a Trout Fishing in America concert because I was quietly singing “Lullaby” to Larry in his last few hours.

It happens regularly during “Ghost Hunters” because we so desperately wanted tobelieve. It happens when our tiny black shih tzu looks up at me as we’re walking and grins. If it’s just tears, ignore it, please. If it’s sobbing, fi nd a bath towel! If it happens at work, invoke the “no bath towel” rule.

Everybody has advice - well-meaning advice, I know.

Right now, though, I don’t want to commit to anything - not exercise, health food, a grief support group or even a book club. Most days it’s all I can do to make it to work and get through the day.

Please don’t be offended if I say, “I’m not ready yet.”

On the other hand, people always say, “Let me know what I can do,” but then they get busy with their own lives again. It’s been six weeks since Larry died, and if you’d like to do something now, invite me to dinner or your child’s ballgame or a movie or concert or play or picnic.

I may say I can’t do it that night. But the offer would be priceless!

Therein is the real dilemma, I guess. In the old days, there was a mourning period, and at least a woman knew how to act during that year. Now, there seems to be a cultural divide between “You should grieve” and “You should get on with your life.”

The life I had planned to get on with (after we defeated cancer) is over. I won’t hear Larry’s key in the door or his chuckle in the other room. We won’t see the Badlands or Las Vegas together. We won’t ride bikes, walk dogs or eat off the grill. We won’t go to Hot Springs to chase ghosts or Murfreesboro to dig diamonds. We won’t grow old together. We won’t be together, except in my dreams.

I have to start by staring down the blank page, then begin to write a new story.

BECCA MARTIN-BROWN IS AN AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST AND FEATURES EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.