Home Alone

Common wisdom is that women live longer than men, but at a recent holiday party, I found myself in the company of two other widowers. Like most men, we conversed stoically about the loss of our wives in straightforward fashion; there were no tears shed as we spoke about feeling lonely and sad, although we all acknowledged giving into waves of grief. Once I got home, I collapsed into bed sobbing.

Grief is not an easy business. I never know what will set me off. Listening to the songs of Leonard Cohen; well, that’s predictable. Going through photos is guaranteed to break my heart. And 50 years of memories? Endless and relentlessly powerful. I’ve given up trying to control it; grief has a life of its own and demands its space.

Distraction helps. My widower friends and I all agreed on that. I’ve busied myself by fixing up the condo I now live in by myself, cluttering, as Norma would describe it. The clutter, items meaningful to me but just decor to anyone else, soothes me but sadly offers no affection to a cuddly guy like me.

Gardening is a good distraction, too, although now that the weather is cold and foggy, fussing outdoors holds less of my attention. I’m looking forward to spring. Attending to my civic life, keeping the Sonoma Valley Sun in print and continuing to serve as a Planning Commissioner occupies hours and adds purpose to my life. I’d planned to take care of Norma into her old age, and did, but that purpose is over. I will admit that at times I feel like I’m just going through the motions, as if I’m some abandoned wind-up toy still mechanically taking one step after another. 

Abandoned is exactly how I sometimes feel. My life with Norma was a total partnership, filled with ups and downs but solid as a rock. Even with the awareness of the inevitability of death, it was easy to live as if our life together would go on forever. I’d always figured I’d be the first to die, so this current situation is not the way I planned it. I tell myself I should have been able to see this coming better, that I screwed up. Thinking I screwed up, of course, makes me cry.

Yoga and meditation are more than a distraction. They both help me feel grounded and part of something larger than my little life alone. Yoga is a practice of finding stillness while in an uncomfortable position, an excellent metaphor for living life in general. It allows me to connect with the vitality of matter, my own and that of planet earth. There are times I feel the heart of Mother Earth throbbing beneath my feet and experience mass and the force of gravity as an active presence.

Meditation is a practice of observation: observation of mind, feelings, and body. Sometimes I just observe my breath, sometimes my thoughts, and sometimes my feelings. I welcome them all like old friends arriving at my door for a party, greeting each one and then letting them wander off to mingle. Unless I get caught up in a conversation with them, I relax, and when in a space of total relaxation I find my authentic self.

My authentic self is pleased to be alive but still quite sad, and will be for a while, perhaps forever. Thus is life home alone.