Mourning A Memory

Not long ago, I received a note of sympathy from an 8-year-old friend of mine. His name is Emmett Delateur, and he is sometimes so discerning it startles me. This is what he wrote - with no help from anyone - about the death of my husband: “I am so sorry about the slipping away of the man of your past.”

At first, I smiled at his words and found them both touching and precocious. But, later, thinking about it, I realized the truth in his words: That for me, married more than half a century, the grieving is not for this 80-year-old man - it truly is for the man in my past.

No, it’s not for the man who argued with me, dominated me and often bored me. More than anything, it’s definitely not for the man who took never-ending delight in reminding me of my faults and errors as he actually knew them to be or pretended that he did.

We were both speech majors in college, and, looking back, I can see that we continued the dramatics into our life together.

So - it’s true - there’s been little grieving for him in this house. Instead, it’s been for the 25-year-old man I married. The handsome, sometimes utterly charming young man. It’s for the man who, for a year or two, thought he was unbelievably blessed to have me in his life.

It’s also for that same young man who was so naive as to believe that ALL marriages literally were “until death us do part.” And how one lived that marriage - regardless of what was said and done or not said and done - could never affect that implacable permanence.

To him, it mattered not if there was yelling or criticism or what is now called verbal abuse. I remember, after we had been married about a year, his telling a friend of mine - with visible astonishment - that I had yet to be angry. I had yet to yell! Yelling was not at all unusual in his home, but there was none in mine, which, ironically, was an unusually happy home despite being a broken one.

I remember the night we had been at a small, informal party and had a heated discussion about politics. I had disagreed with his views and he was both hurt and angry. Didn’t I know that married couples always agreed on politics? Interpretation: The wife voted the way the husband voted - the way he told her to vote.

For too many years, I did this. Then I began, infrequently, to vote the way I wanted to. My most memorable election was maybe 25 years ago, when I rebelled and deliberately voted the opposite from him on every single thing on the ballot. I never told him this, but I’ve not forgotten the heady pleasure it gave me to do it.

After that, I simply voted the way I wanted to.

How strange it is to find myself - after his death - feeling maternal and tender toward the slim, good-looking young man he was, and doing minimal, almost no, grieving for the changed old man.

I had parents who practically never criticized me, and I think now it was not the best preparation for marriage. I mean, where is there a man who finds his wife flawless? In fact, when my husband told me during our first year of marriage what he believed a wife should be, I simply could not - and obviously never did - accept it.

This is what he said: A wife would realize her husband couldn’t lose his temper with his employees - or anyone outside his family - and so, of course, he had no recourse but to lose his temper at home. And the wife wouldn’t care how much he yelled at her or what he said to her in anger. She would know that he simply had to explode at someone, and she would be happy knowing that, underneath, he wasn’t really angry at her.

When you’ve been married for what seems like an eternity, and you try to find that younger person you married in the older person you still live with - you finally realize you just can’t do it. I’ve tried to be fair, to be analytical and objective about myself, to see myself - this old woman - as he must have seen me, and I’m sure he asked himself the same questions about me many times. Perhaps, the most challenging things about the end - by death - of a long marriage, are knowing how to handle your feelings and how to live the rest of your life.

Should you mandatorily allow yourself some time to grieve, no matter how or when? Or should you continue to remind yourself that excessive grief, regrets and guilt are all futile and self-diminishing emotions?

Should you deliberately and firmly close that door, allowing only the happiest of memories to somehow sift through?

One thing I do know for sure: It’s a little late to chastise either myself or him. We’ve both been what we’ve been - good and bad and somewhere in between.

Now’s the time to begin to quietly explore the world that’s still waiting … the world that, even now, continues to promise and beckon.

At 76, I don’t anticipate, or even want, excitement. But there are lots of gentler and softer joys I’ll gladly settle for.

And I’ll know how lucky I am to have them.

MEMO: Jane Lavagetto is a Spokane-based freelance writer. She turned 76 today.