Widow Walk

This thought arrived - without fanfare and originating from nowhere in particular except my somewhat scattered mind - both my grandmothers spent more than half their lives widows. Of my paternal grandfather, I remember nothing as he had died before I was was born and no one spoke about him but of my mother's mother, it may have actually been the better part of her life.

My grandfather was a hard man, successful, admired, widely respected but wholly unlikeable. His death left my grandmother a widow but a prominent and comfortably well off one. If she missed his company, she never said so and after the funeral she resumed her life with ease and equilibrium, making no outward changes but seeming to breathe more freely and smile more often. She had her home, her trusty navy blue Lincoln ( still replaced every two or three years with a more current model whether it was needed or not ), her lodgework and her friends, her grandchildren. She crocheted and knitted, cooked holiday dinners, never missed Lawrence Welk, entertained and went to church irregularly, slept in the same twin bed and took charge of her life with a cheerful if demanding spirit. She became less hard to please and more forgiving, maintaining her lifestyle and opening new doors with a fearless kind of curiosity. Never one to publicly put her emotions on display, if she mourned, she kept it to herself. If she rejoiced, she did it privately.

Though I dared tell no one, I was relieved at his passing - being a loud and large man, he had always secretly frightened me a little. I was glad to be able to visit Nana without feeling in the way, as if I might break something valuable or get on his nerves. In addition, he and my mother were constantly at odds, sniping at each other like stray dogs fighting about a leftover bone. I never thought they liked each other very much, possibly there was too much of each in the other - she felt unloved and rejected, he was simply not interested in parenting. Nana always seemed caught in the middle of these usually petty quarrels and she had no good way out - backing or defending either side was a losing proposition, doing nothing brought them both down on her.

She put on her widowhood and wore it well. I think it suited her.