Thread by @VABVOX

I've been thinking a lot about #widowhood since The Wife died. There used to be rules women followed at the death of a spouse. There still are in many cultures/religions. The rules were to maintain respect for the widow, to advertise her loss and support her in her grief.
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There was a period of wearing black and a veil. Then just black. Then grey. Then mauve or purple. The stages of grief and recovery. But of course not everyone recovered. And in an era of often forced marriage, there wasn't always true grief.
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But now, widows are expected to move on. Barely two weeks after The Wife's sudden death for which I was utterly unprepared, people were asking me out on dates. (And still are.) Men and women. It feels shocking and disrespectful. But a couple friends said it's common.
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One friend said when his mom died--which tore his &his father's hearts to shreds--the women were lining up for his dad. Another friend said when her spouse died she joined a bereavement group only to get hit on. Everyone wants widows to move on. We make people uncomfortable.
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Widows remind others of mortality. That the average age of a widow is 59 only adds to that discomfiture. Yet for the widow, time moves glacially slow. So so so slowly. And the tsunami of grief that began one's widowhood only changes slightly, to sudden rogue waves.
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And so here I am again, on another Saturday night, alone, watching TV, crocheting, doing some writing, some scrolling of Twitter, thinking about trying 🐳 but unsure I have the bandwidth for anything outside my safety zone, because widowhood is consuming, like a wildfire.
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I'm angry a lot now. One widow who kindly took me under her wing told me people will be patient at first, but not for long. Oh well. And so I have these fits of crying. And raging. Alone in this house where The Wife should still be. And I just want folks to know--it's hard.
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I wrote this piece --one of a series of stories I have written on my widowhood and about The Wife. It will be in Sunday's Inquirer, but you can read it here. (I hope you will.)

inquirer.com/opinion/commen…
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