You are absolutely right. I cannot understand exactly how you feel since I have not been there, but you haven't walked ten miles in my shoes either. Since every person's grief journey is unique, you cannot understand EXACTLY what ANYONE else is going through. But I can tell you this, it's that kind of arrogant, self-righteous, "my giref is worse than your grief" attitude that only hurts and further demeans the women (and men) who do become involved with people who have lost their spouse from death.
Regarding compassion, as a human being, I am very compassionate, but as a woman who is interested in developing a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, not so much. My job is not to date a man so that I can help him "heal" from loving someone else. As a woman looking to develop a loving relationship with a man, I am ONLY interested in someone who is free of the chains of the past and who is able to commit wholly to our relationship. As a potential romantic partner, my expectation is that someone be ready to hit the ground running with me, not expect me to spend years of my own short, precious life serving as a stand-in, replacement, emotional healer, runner-up, to the woman who came before me. If a man wants that, then he needs to rely on his friends and his own paid grief therapist, but don't show up on my door and expect me to help him cope by putting my life on hold because another woman lost hers.
Perhaps rather than attacking women like me who are honest and forthright about their own relationship needs, you should be passing the message foreward that widowers (and widows) do the hard work of grief recovery BEFORE they put themselves out on the market as being emotionally and spiritually available when they clearly are not. If someone isn't capable of being emotionally and spiritually faithful to their mate, then perhaps they need to hold off on the physical involvement until they can be.
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The Other Love of His Life
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Yet I still grappled with the feeling that I might never measure up to what he lost. In his mind, she will always be 33 and beautiful. Me? I'll get gray hair, wrinkled skin and flabby thighs. What's more, their relationship will remain perfect, frozen forever in newlywed bliss. In six short months, they didn't weather the storms that come with age and time: sleepless nights caring for newborns, arguments over money, in-law drama.
As I fell more deeply in love, more questions came.If he had to pick one of us, whom would he choose? After we die, will he want to be buried next to her or to me? Will we spend eternity as a trio?
But the most pressing question came on the morning of July 12: do I go with him to visit her at the cemetery?
At first, I thought I didn't belong there, that she would want to spend her birthday with her husband minus the new girlfriend. I felt guilty for living the life she was robbed of—that I was lucky because she wasn't.
But Brandon reassured me. "She would want me to find someone else," he said. "Someone who can make me as happy as she did."
So we celebrated her birthday together—all three of us. Brandon and I arranged flowers and planted a mini-balloon into the earth. "She's usually pretty quiet," he said, trying to get a laugh. The wind kicked up and the balloon began bobbing back and forth. "It looks like she's waving at us," I said. Secretly, I hoped she was letting me know she approved.
In that moment, I realized I didn't want to fill her shoes. I had my own. She and I had much in common, but we were also very different. I call Brandon out on things she might have let slide. She enjoyed shopping; I prefer wine tasting. She was a master quilter; I can't hem a pair of pants.
"I am a very lucky man," Brandon said, as he hugged me on the cemetery lawn.
I used to disagree. How could someone who lost his wife in an instant call himself "lucky"? But as we walked back to the car, I knew he was right. He has the love of two women. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic, but I like to believe the first one helped guide him to the second.
Paturel is a writer living in Murrieta, Calif.
© 2009
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