(As told to Joie Bose)
Every day when I wake up the stillness in the house grasps me. It’s been a few months that I am living like this. After being together for 30 years, being single again would be the freedom I had always thought. But it’s not. I wonder how girls these days stay alone, never wanting to marry. How can some leave their husbands and stay? I could not. I guess that’s why he left me.
A recurring fear grasps me. What if the flush in the toilet doesn’t work? I don’t know the plumber’s house. I have written down the number of new plumbers who have been advertised in the newspaper in my diary. But I am scared to call him. What if the new plumber is a thief or a dacoit? Have you seen the number of crimes that happen? Robbery in broad daylight! Murder. Rape. I used to think they would let an old woman be, but no! My husband had shown me in the newspaper, a report on how an old lady of 85 was raped and killed. Yes, I have the number of the police station, but they don’t always pick up the phone. I remember only my husband’s phone number, but he won’t pick up if I call.
I remember only my husband’s phone number, but if I call, he won’t pick up.
When I Called Him Every Day
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I used to call him every day before I left the house from the landline on his office phone. Then when mobile phones came he was one of the first to have one. First, it was 6 digits, then it became 7 and 10 digits – his phone numbers. I’ve got them all memorized. I guess I will never forget them. I still dial all the variants. No one picks up. Only digitally recorded voices say things. I wish I could hear his perky voice again. I wish he would talk to me. I’d ask him to get me some bread.
Related Reading: Write In A Sympathy Card When Someone Loses Her Husband
I don’t like going out to buy bread. He would always bring a different variety – sometimes fruit, spiced, sometimes whole wheat multigrain. I have stopped having bread these days.
He would also get me a pastry. I have never asked him to, but he knows I like it. Strawberry pastry or butterscotch was my favorite. I also loved ice cream. We would have the ice cream for dessert after dinner. He would switch on the TV. We would watch movies. In the morning he would news read to me as I made breakfast for us. Bread and eggs. We had bread and eggs every day for the last 30 years. I have cornflakes now. I’ve not had a pastry or ice cream ever since he left. I hope the bell will ring and he will come, with bread, pastry and ice cream. He doesn’t. He won’t. Dead people don’t do that. It’s tough to think he is dead, but if I don’t say it, it doesn’t seem real.
Related reading: What I regret after my partner died
We Clicked as Soon as We Met
I was going back from church one Sunday in the 80s when I decided to go to the bakery instead. I would buy some ginger cookies for my parents who were both at home. Mother was ailing and father would not leave her, even for Christ. That was where I met him. There was a long queue. He had politely given me his turn. Something clicked. The conversation that began that day never ended till his coffin was closed shut.
We didn’t have any children. I had a disease and no prayers or medicine could make me a mother. So we became parents to dogs. We have had three so far and the last one was taken by our Good Lord three years ago. After that, we decided not to keep any. We were both aging. We always thought I would go first, for he was younger than me by 4 years. He was healthy too. I had diabetes and my eyesight has been failing for a few years. But who would think it would be him? I still can’t believe it.
Nancy is my niece and she wanted to take me with her to Sydney after he left. But there are these plants my husband was fond of and I have to take care of them. I know I won’t live long. But every second that I am alive, I miss him.
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I can’t imagine ur pain or loss but I know as dearly as ur husband loved u he would not want u to continue living alone and dying slowly of I’ll health and lonliness …go live with your niece and experience a different life and count the blessing of having known and loved someone who was like a miracle in your life
I know no words would ever be enough to express what you must be going through. But then, ever wondered, by being drowned by in the grief of his loss, you are choosing to overlook all the days he lived and focusing on his death, his absence instead? Thirty years of togetherness.. You are so blessed to have such a great length of time together. Acknowledge that blessing and understand what your beloved would have wanted for you when he is gone. Understand you being so lost in his memory, to the extent that you have begun to lose yourself is not something that he would have wanted for you. Understand that your beloved’s presence is not validated by the plants in your balcony, but how you choose to love and take care of yourself carrying all his warmth, all his essence inside you. That’s how you make him smile by living fully one time at a day. I hope you choose to make him smile by smiling more fully every day.
Heartbreaking! The pain cannot be shared with anyone. What the woman was left with was an empty space! Nobody on this planet cannot actually fulfill it! God bless everyone
Losing a spouse is one of the most painful experiences one can be put through. You may feel lost and stuck, uncomfortable making even the most minor of decisions. But the emotional pain will heal eventually. You will have to move and live the rest of your life. Many people experience great loss but after a certain period of time, they surely find a way to live meaningful lives and so can you…