Twenty-five Years

Twenty-five years ago on this day in August 1988, I became a widow when my husband died of prostate cancer.  He was 64.  I was 49.  To give you an idea of how long ago that was, Ronald Reagan was still president.  Though it's been 25 years, I have to admit that it feels more like 125 years.  There are times when I wonder that I was, in fact, ever married.  I do know that soon afterwards, my 19 years of married life eclipsed and my earlier single life suddenly seemed to take over again.  I'd even look at husbands of friends, amazed that such people existed.  Mine was gone; weren't they all?  Of course, I now had a splendid daughter--she with one more year of high school.  Then I'd become a real empty nester when she'd leave for university.

After 25 years you'd think I'd be used to the widowed life, and I guess I am.  I can certainly buy, sell, and rent houses as I've done in four different states.  I've traveled on my own (not with a group), turned myself into a painter (selling oils and water colors), written something like five (unpublished) manuscripts, and, yes, thought about being with someone again, though that hasn't happened.

What I really miss is someone to go places with, laugh with, confer with, tell our grandchildren (whom he never knew) our old family stories, as well as bring out the old games, toys, and favorite children's books.  Of course, I've downsized so much, I no longer have what we used to have.  I've also left the community where we lived, where we spent all our married years, where our daughter grew up.  Maybe not a wise decision.

What with his and others' deaths later, various moves and illnesses, I sometimes felt as if I were pushing some sort of existential pause button as I worked to regain strength (and orientation), only to find, after I "reawakened," that I now had an older body that didn't want to do the old things.  (Even long-distance travel no longer enthralled me.)  I also felt as if I were on some sort of Red Alert ... whether prompted by the weather, house, car, weird jangles, sounds, aches, even having to make ordinary decisions about this or that ... as if I were constantly revved up, unable to soak down into myself.  Watch Out, Be Careful.

I miss my husband in all this, he who used to make me laugh--with a humor which could cut through anything.

Here he is doing research on tropical agriculture outside Kathmandu.
The eight-year-old in the white dress is our daughter.