Why Widows Get Mad: A Do-it-Yourself Rant

We got screwed out of our happy ending. We were raised to fall in love, get married, raise kids, and grow old together. So much for that. We don't want to mow the grass, change the lightbulbs, fix shit, barbeque, do all the cooking, driving, worrying and planning. We don't want to sleep alone at night.

Widows get mad because we have a historical reputation of being kind of loser-ish. In some cultures, we might as well just throw ourselves into a good, hot fire.

We want someone to take care of us, buy us presents and flowers, take us to dinner, give us backrubs, tell us we're beautiful, tell us what great mothers we are, leave notes around the house for us, remind us that everything will be OK, brush off our fears.

We find it hard to raise our children alone. We find it hard to watch our children without their father and other children with their fathers, and we feel guilty that we can't be father and mother both. We get mad because we don't want to take the kids camping or build a bonfire or make something cool out of wood or butcher a fish. We are mad at ourselves because we are not men, especially when we have sons.

We are mad because sometimes mad is easier than sad, easier than acknowledging that little piece of us that will always be in mourning for everything that will never, ever, ever be. We get mad because no one can understand us, because no one wants to be us, because even though you all know how lousy our situation is you still expect us to get over it. We are mad because we know we have to get over it too but we doubt we ever will fully get over it, so get over it.

We get mad because we were so damn unlucky, our kids got cheated, and our dead husbands were even unluckier. We get mad because our future is less secure and more uncertain. Widows get mad because we want the future we had imagined for ourselves when we finally found the one.

Widows get mad because we never feel like we get enough help with our kids, our decisions, our finances, our daily to-do list. Widows get mad at people who complain too much about their perfectly good spouses. Widows get mad when you say that your husband never does anything anyway as if it's almost the same as not having a husband at all.

Widows get mad because they can't be angry if they want to be happy. Widows want to be happy. They can be. But sometimes they feel angry.

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Ok. Your turn. Why do you get mad, widow? Take 5 minutes and put it on paper. Then shove the paper down someone's throat.

The Lost Husband

I lost my husband
but unlike a cellphone
or a pair of glasses
I won't find him.
Unless, perhaps,
he shows up:
in my daughter's sweetness,
or my son's competitiveness.

He is missing; he won't be recovered
until I stand in the garage to ready the bikes,
water the plants inside the house,
or tackle the weeds with gloves and clippers.

I will never again live with his patience, his understanding
except for when I use
the good deal he left to me,
finally just keep my mouth shut,
choose kindness, be an optimist.

Never again will I see him
proud on Damen Avenue,
or perhaps in my repetitive dreams,
arising in the building where he invested his hope
where our niece lives now,
where we lived once, where we got married,
where I try to keep the dream alive,
even when it scares me
when I don't understand why I am alone in it.

He died at the Evanston Hospital
which is just down the street from our house.
Every time I go there
for an appointment, or to visit the sick,
or remember how I gave birth to our children there,
he wavers and shimmers
like a ghost, here and gone.

He will be absent at graduations, weddings,
vacations, family meals, health scares, proud moments,
storms, and floods.
Then I will say or someone will think
that you should be here, and you arrive.

In Santa Fe once we fell in love
with a painting we didn't buy.
I can still see it hanging over our mantel
where I still admire it
where it makes us happy,
where it never was,
where it never will be again.