The enormous challenge of facing the future without your beloved partner at your side, looms more powerfully during certain holidays. Father’s Day, which just passed on the calendar, is one such painful day for some widows.
When I was 47, I lost my dearly loved husband who was the father of our two young children. We had five months together after my husband’s cancer diagnosis, and they are among the most meaningful months of my life. I had a husband who bravely said his peace to the people he both loved and worked with. He left words for the rest of us to live by and consider, even though the uttering of these words took phenomenal courage to both say and to hear.
I recently interviewed three women from the Santa Ynez Valley who each lost their husband at different ages and stages of their lives, and asked them to share a little about their experiences. This is not offered as advice, but rather hoping that sharing our human experiences will be of comfort to some.
Susan Beckmann is among the most cheerful people I’ve ever met. However, I learned that when she was just 32, her husband Jeff died, leaving behind she and their three-year-old daughter. He was handsome and fit and his cancer was a shock. And although Susan is now happily remarried and working hard on her real estate career, the memory still brings tears to her eyes. She remembers that in the time it took to walk from the hospital where Jeff died, to her car, she went through all the traditional stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. She had a small child, there was no choice but to function.
She described an image she used to help her cope: It was of an open book. She understood that life is made of chapters. That particular chapter, the wonderful early period with Jeff, was over. Being the hopeful person she is, as well as being the mother of a young daughter, she decided there’d be more chapters to her book.
Barbara Brown describes how at 19 her head swiveled at her first glance of Gordon. He was young and beautiful and drove a red and white ’55 Chevy. It was lust at first sight. Yet, Barbara is completely realistic about their 54-year marriage. It wasn’t perfect. She wishes Gordon had been a better communicator. He didn’t talk much, but he was a wizard at fixing things. She looks back at the good life they had raising their three kids in the Santa Ynez Valley. And being the independent woman that she is, she now works and sings in two musical groups; swims several times a week, and is in a book group. But she misses the fun she and Gordon had -- and she misses his smell.
Vera Margolis is the oldest of the three women and was married the longest. She lost her husband after nearly 70 years of marriage. Aggie was a larger-than-life man, actively involved in the Santa Ynez Valley, especially after his retirement at 72 from a career in electronics at Vandenberg. He was a Viking, served on the Grand Jury, and was a pillar of the Jewish community. Everybody knew and loved Aggie.
Vera is an artist and relatively confident, but quiet and introverted, the opposite of Aggie. Without him, she has had to push herself to engage with people. Many try to give comfort, including her daughter, with whom she is close. Yet, she describes a great emptiness.
Vera explained one solution she’s found: She recorded Aggie toward the end of his life. Perhaps, she says, she subconsciously knew he’d soon be gone. The video ends with Aggie looking into the camera, telling Vera how much he loves her. In the privacy of her room, she plays this videotape. At first, she cried unbearably when her loss was still fresh. But she now knows she's getting better; for when she plays that same video, Aggie’s face and voice give her more comfort and not as much pain.
When award-winning writer Rick Bass was facing the loss of his own long-term partner, he asked a friend who’d recently been widowed, “What do I need to carry on?”
His friend replied, “Courage."
And Susan, Barbara and Vera have showed this courage.