Grief and men

 

When women  in my parent's retirement community talked about men and grief, they used to say, "women mourn, men replace." Those who were widows and wanted to remarry, made sure they attended the late wife's funeral and were quick to inundate the new widower with casseroles and baked goodies.

For the women who were happy to be single after years of varying degrees of bad and good marriage, they  might have attended the funeral, but left the baking to those vying for a new missus title referring to the men in question as having "tea on their tie and pee on their fly."

Until I remet my soul mate in my 70th year I didn't think much about either. My opinion on marriage was basically, why bother.

However, I've begun to think more what a good marriage means and what happens when a man loses a much loved wife.

I thought back to my Aunt Maude and Uncle Archer. He epitomized the word fussbudget.  He adored Maudie, making sure she put on a sweater in case she might get cold or dusting off a seat before he let her sit. She died unexpectedly, the night they had returned from a visit to his sister.

His daughter-in-law had no patience with him not wanting him to let him spend as much tie with his wife at the funeral home. The meals she prepared for him were often left untouched. He joined Maudie just a few months later, never adjusting to be without her.

Since then several wives of men who are also friends have died. These are men who are not afraid to express their emotions and their deep, deep grief. One said, she took all that was the best about him with her. Another was described as continuing to breathe but not to live. One obituary described his wife as his best friend making his loss doubly painful.

They were involved in lifetime partnerships going through the ups and downs that life throws out. Late in life they were no longer the handsome and beautiful bride and groom they were on their wedding days. The romance in marriage became something deeper when they saw their spouse throw up, writhe in childbirth, learned they did something incredibly stupid or want something totally different. The emotion becomes something different, deeper, impossible to duplicate leaving emptiness. 

I wish I could help my male friends come out the other side of their pain, but learning to live with the loss so profound, is something each person has to go through on their own.

Very few of us get through life without suffering some loss, some grief. For me, it is a reminder to recognize each golden moment I have with those I like and love.