Ruth, my kind and unflappable bereavement counsellor was looking a little “flappy”. Tall, in her 50s, with grownup kids and a gentle, reassuring manner, she was struggling to believe her ears and not slop her coffee to my worries: “How will people react if I sell the house, buy a Ferrari or am seen cavorting in the hot tub with a swimsuit model?”
OK, so this was a stretch. Swimsuit models were never lining up for my attention or hot tub when I was single / younger / less emotionally battered and actually it’s an old, plumbed-in Victorian roll-top bath in the garden. However I was dramatising for impact, such is my alarm at my emerging status as widower of the parish.
Where I live is pretty prosperous and families with children are the norm. Crossing the road, you play “Frogger” between Ocado deliveries and seven-seater Volvos. Sure, there are divorces and deaths but being single with kids makes you stand out. Add the tragedy of it being death, not divorce, that has created one’s singledom and the spotlight shines brighter. Overlay the death of one’s wife and the status of widower is akin to being a lighthouse on a dark night that someone has stuck a roman candle up.
I feel, as never before, a sense of visibility and vulnerability. As a family we’re in danger of being defined by Helen’s death, our loss public property like a pregnant woman’s bump seems to be. Don’t get me wrong, people have been so very kind and supportive, and their love helped me avoid the whisky-until-you-forget route in the early days. However, I now get a sense that all I do is viewed by some people through the lens of Helen’s life-limiting illness and early death.
It’s as if there’s a script of behaviours for the bereaved, the “Miss Havisham” rules. This comprises a set of unwritten and therefore unchallengeable edicts to govern my new, unwanted status. I am pretty sure, however, that not only do these rules not include much merriment, they almost certainly involve a long period in the wilderness where adult flirting, random child rearing, new relationships, sex or, indeed, anything that is not a linear progression of a middle England version of Victorian mourning will be frowned upon.
I’m not saying that I feel there’s a Greek chorus looking on who think they have a right and remit to critique my behaviour but … sorry, yes, that’s exactly how I feel. Not everyone by any means, and not the obvious candidates, but some for sure.
This challenges my screaming desire to seize life by the lapels and behave if not badly then unexpectedly. Why would I try to live out the same life I would have had with Helen, just a more miserable, lonely and unfulfilled version of it?
It’s not what she would want, nor what Millie and Matt will need. For the moment, what matters is stability and sweating the small stuff until things have settled down, but change will – and should – come.
My lovely divorced friend, Jo, who has been by herself for years with her two boys, brought home to me the fact that being sole grown-up-in-charge means things can happen very fast, “Being the only adult in the house frees you make decisions and move quickly if you want to – faster indeed than people around you are used to, or can sometimes accept. It can make you a talking point.”
I would never have chosen to be alone but I see the power it brings – a not unattractive freedom to make quick, big decisions that will carry the kids away from their grief by creating a new life – not just the old one without Mum. So bereavement is empowering me to deal with bereavement, which is an unexpected and morbidly virtuous circle.
Ruth’s silence is now deafening. Seeing her adrift in a sea of uncertainty I throw her a lifebelt: “Ruth, by any chance are most of the people you visit a lot older than me?” She smiles wryly and replies, speech returning: “Much older and usually women. For widows in their 80s, the topic of swimsuit models in hot tubs is not as common as one might think, Adam!”
I suspect I may need to keep writing my own script.
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
