SORTING IT ALL OUT FOR AT LEAST

A Widow Bit – Jan. 6, 2008

By Mary Koch

I can’t find the telephone. I can’t find the dog’s food dish. There are a myriad of things I can’t find.

Like the tide ceaselessly moving in and out, order and chaos fluctuate throughout my home. I’m trying to adapt the house to my new status of widowhood while tackling improvements that have been put off far too long—some dating back to 1984, when we bought the house.

I get one room in order with fresh paint, curtains hung, furniture rearranged, stuff put away, then start on the next room, creating new disruption that inevitably overflows into the previously, but only momentarily, tidy room.

A friend observed that new widows do one of two things: travel or redecorate. I am stunned that I opted for the latter. John and I loved to travel before his stroke injuries made the logistics of going great distances impossible.

Because as a caregiver I couldn’t get away, I haven’t been on an airplane in 14 years. The more I hear about the nuisance of air travel, the less inclined I am to buy a ticket. But that’s not the real reason I am housebound. I need to “nest” as a form of self-nurturing, and I suspect I’m trying to establish some roots.

One of the first people I called the morning John died was a dear friend and long-time widow. I gave her the news, we exchanged mutual words of sorrow and comfort, and then she apologized if she were asking too soon but wanted to know, “Will you stay here?”

She, like I, had moved to the Okanogan for love of a man whose soul was rooted in this country. When her husband died, she stayed, certain that her own roots had been solidly and deeply transplanted. I feel more like I was grafted onto John’s rootstock. I’m not sure those roots can sustain me now that the main stem is gone.

Don’t get me wrong. I am enchanted by this rugged, exotic country. But to thrive here requires a degree of grit and tenacity that I’m not sure I can summon as a solo act.

Then there’s this 80-year-old house, not particularly well built in the first place and remuddled over the years by various owners. John always liked this house more than I did. Born in Santa Barbara, he felt right at home with its pseudo California Mission design, which seems to me incongruous in the Northwest. But there’s always location, location, location. I love living alongside the lazy Okanogan River and its thriving wildlife.

To go or to stay? I’m subscribing to the widow’s mantra: “Make no major decisions for at least one year.” So I concentrate on shuffling the chaos from room to room, chaos that never would have occurred if John hadn’t died.

The end of a life should be a disruption. Who would want their absence to go unnoticed? When departed souls leave us in a state of disarray, we are reminded just how much they mattered.