“Who’s that?” she’d ask. So I’d pull out my laptop, and we’d go down the rabbit hole of Google images, searching, searching, searching for Joel.
I talked to him every day, mostly asking him the same questions: Where are you? Are you still here? Are you OK?
Around this time, I also started to get rid of some of Joel’s things. It was painful seeing his clothes hanging in the closet next to mine. His toothbrush in its holder on our bathroom counter. His sandals in the basket by the front door. These were constant reminders of his permanent absence. So slowly, I started to assess his things.
Losing Joel cemented the idea that things we give such value to are really, truly meaningless. Joel lived. Joel died. And when he died, he took nothing with him. Nothing.
Not his iPad. Not his beloved record collection. Not even his wedding ring.
He took nothing. Because of this, I wasn’t particularly attached to the “stuff” left behind. So when I was going through his things, I made piles. Things I knew I wanted to keep for myself and/or for Sophie, and things I wanted to give to family. I liked that people close to us would have something of his. Just like telling everyone that I was a widow, giving away his things kept Joel alive.
My nephew got a casual sports coat and some sweaters. I gave Joel’s sister, Andrea, some more of his clothes for her husband and son. Both Hal and Nancy got some photos and other personal things, but it was hardest for them, to see what was left behind. Joel’s friends were thrilled to come over and shop his record and CD collection. I loved having his friends over to reminisce with. One thing that surprised me was the amount of guitars and music equipment I found in the garage. Joel liked to strum on the guitar we had in the house, but I had forgotten about all of the other stuff that he had from his band-playing days. There were acoustic guitars, a few electric ones, amplifiers, pedals, chords, even some tambourines.
When I asked Joel’s friend Greg what to do with all of it, he suggested that I take it to Guitar Center and that they’d help me out. Another one of Joel’s friends agreed. I was in a spring-cleaning mindset and just wanted to be done with this stuff, but with the thought of getting it all in my car, schlepping it across town, not really speaking the “language” of what I had, I decided to just keep it in the garage. I felt overwhelmed by it.
But one night, Jillian asked if I wanted to join her at a concert that one of her friend’s sons was playing in. She wanted me to leave my house. To do things for myself. She also knew that I loved music, and this was a low-key event that Sophie’s former guitar teacher was putting on with some of his students. I really didn’t want to go. I had already been to my writing group that week, and one night out was typically my limit.
Sophie had a starring role in the school musical and was at rehearsals late into the night all week. I had no excuse (other than my husband had died) to say no.
Sophie had taken guitar lessons in seventh grade and stopped a few months before her bat mitzvah. Guitar fell under Joel’s jurisdiction. He did all the vetting, set up the schedule, and took her to all of her lessons, which were taught on the other side of our neighborhood.
One day he couldn’t make it, so I took her. I parked the car down the street and saw a guy standing in front of a little bungalow, in a T-shirt and jeans with a black beanie on his head and his dark hair sticking out from under it. His face had a strong five o’clock shadow. He was on the phone and waved to Sophie.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Marcos,” she said.
“That’s the guitar teacher?”
“Yeah.”
Marcos was around my age. He was handsome and had a cool, casual musician vibe.
“Have we met before?” he asked as he stuffed his phone into his front pocket. He shook my hand. “You look familiar.”
“It’s because Sophie and I look so much alike,” I answered. I think I may have been blushing.
“You do, but she’s got those green eyes like her dad!” he said animatedly. “But yeah, anyway. Thought maybe I knew you.”
He opened the front door. “Come on in, Soph. Get yourself set up.” Then he turned to me. “Mom, you can have a seat right there.” He pointed to his kitchen table, which was just on the other side of the room.
He turned away from me and focused all of his attention on Sophie.
“OK, Soph. You been practicing?”
Sophie nodded as she took her guitar out of her case. In amazement, I watched as my twelve-year-old set up her guitar, plugged herself in, and stood in front of the microphone. Marcos took a seat behind the drums, and for the next half hour I watched my daughter have her guitar lesson. They played a few songs, as if they were in a band and had been playing together a long time.
Marcos was a gifted teacher. He treated his students as if they were equals, as if they already knew how to play. It was empowering. I understood why all the kids in the neighborhood who took guitar lessons took them from Marcos.
That night I called our friend who had recommended him, another mom. “No one told me the guitar teacher is so hot!” I said.
She laughed. “Get in line. We all have crushes on Marcos.”
The gig Jillian invited me to was in a little club where Joel and I had seen Marcos play, back when he was teaching Sophie. There was a stage and tables; it was set up like a nightclub. It was open to all ages because Marcos wanted kids and their parents to come together to see a rock show, even if the show consisted of Marcos playing with his students. Marcos was a single parent, and his young teenage son would often play these gigs with him.
I remember feeling sad that night, and lonely. I knew almost all of the parents there. They, of course, knew me and Joel. They knew that I was grieving. They were also happy to see me out and about, acting as if I had a life. One of the moms gave me a hug. She mentioned her friend Allison, the woman who had left a voicemail for me weeks ago.
“Call her back,” said this mom, encouragingly. “Even if you just go for coffee or something, she’s great! And she’s been through what you’re experiencing.”
No, she hasn’t, I thought. I still held exclusive rights to grief.
“You OK?” Jillian asked.
I nodded my head and looked at the stage as Marcos introduced the eighth grade band. I still found Marcos attractive but was surprised I was capable of noticing.
Jillian and I watched and clapped, and I acted as if I was enjoying myself, but after a little while, I turned to her.
“I think I need to go home.”
“OK, let’s go then,” she said a little too fast. This wasn’t her scene either, and she understood how hard it was for me.
As we stood up, we noticed Marcos, who was now standing below the stage looking in my direction. “I think he wants to talk to you . . . but he probably doesn’t know what to say,” Jillian said.
So I approached him. I didn’t want to leave without saying hi first.
“Hey there,” he said. “How’re you doing?”
Before I could answer, Marcos said, “I just want you to know I’m really sorry about Joel. He was a good man. A good father. I saw him in action and . . .” Marcos tapped his heart, emotional.
“Thank you. Yes, we’re doing OK,” I said.
“Please give Sophie my best, and listen, if there’s anything you guys need, anything I can help you with, please don’t hesitate, OK? I mean it, anything.”
I heard that from a lot of people in those days, offers to help with anything I needed. But what I need is so much!
A sense of security.
A sense of well-being.
A sense that I would survive.
In lieu of those elusive things, people genuinely did want to help and were so excited when I gave them something specific: Can you grab some coffee beans for me next time you’re at Costco? Or, Would you mind dropping a package off at UPS for me?
“Actually,” I said to Marcos, “I found a bunch of Joel’s guitars in our garage. There’s a lot of stuff, reall
y. I just . . . I’m not sure what to do with it. Like, if I should try to sell it or maybe your students could use some of it.”
“Yeah, I could help with that. But whatever you do, do not take it to Guitar Center.”
Few things made me laugh in those days. But his response made me smile. It was so random and specific, and totally opposite of what Joel’s friends had advised me to do.
“That’s so funny!” I said. “I was considering taking it to Guitar Center.”
“No. I’ll come take a look at everything. I’m happy to. You have my number?” Marcos asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I know how to you find you.”
I felt awkward standing there with him. I didn’t know if I should hug him, or if he was going to hug me. I was the recipient of a lot of hugs in those days. Grief hugs, support hugs, awkward hugs.
Marcos reached out and squeezed my arm. “I’ll be in touch, OK?” I nodded yes and watched as he climbed back onto the stage to continue with the show.
I got home and just sat in the dark for a while. I thought about Marcos and our conversation. I liked that he and Joel knew each other. I was relieved that he would help with the guitars. But more than my encounter with Marcos, I couldn’t help but question, Is this really my life now?
I am alone. I am single. I am a widow.
Where is Joel?!
I felt empty and sad. I felt lonely.
Everything felt like too much.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through my messages. I found Allison’s voicemail and finally listened to it. I had to give her credit. I don’t know that I could call a stranger-widow and offer any comfort. But I liked what she said, and we had enough people in common. I took a breath and decided to get back to her. It was too late to call so I sent a text.
Hi, it’s Melissa Gould. Thanks for your message, and I’m sorry about your husband. Maybe we can meet for coffee one day.
I startled when the dogs started barking.
“Mom?”
Sophie had come home. She put down her things and turned on the lights. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I hadn’t noticed. How was rehearsal?” I asked.
“Fun,” she said. “But what’s for dinner?”
I looked at the clock. It was after ten. “Dinner?! Didn’t they order pizza or something?”
“Yeah, but there was none left because we were practicing my solo when it got there.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll make you something.”
I shuffled into the kitchen, tired, confused, as always.
Sophie unpacked her things while I started boiling water for pasta.
“How was Marcos’s show?”
“It was nice. I saw some of your friends there. And Marcos. He asked about you.”
“That’s nice.”
“It’s hard,” I said, my voice cracking. “Being out without Daddy. I miss him.”
Sophie nodded. I saw her thinking.
“He’s not going to see me in my play,” she said.
I searched for the right thing to say, when all I wanted to do was collapse on the floor and sob.
Joel won’t be here for her play . . .
Or for middle school graduation, which is just a few months away.
He won’t be here on her first day of high school.
He won’t be here to teach her how to drive in a few years.
He won’t be here when she gets her first job.
Or at her wedding.
And he will never meet his grandchildren.
I swallowed down all of those thoughts and sadness and tried to figure out a response.
“I think he’ll still see you in the play,” I said after a minute. “I’m not sure how. But I know he wouldn’t miss it.”
She thought about that. Then she said, “You know how when Daddy was in the hospital and I would ask you, He’s going to be OK, right? He’s going to be fine? Well, I think he is. I think he’s OK now.”
A mountain of love burst through my heart. I approached Sophie to give her a hug. She put up her hands to stop me.
“Don’t.”
It’s not that she was cold or unaffectionate. She was a teenager. Sophie liked having her space, but this behavior was fairly new. I often asked myself, Is this because she’s a teenager or because her dad died?
So I just stared at her. My beautiful, wise, soulful daughter.
“I think Daddy’s OK now, too,” I said.
I started to heat up some sauce when my phone beeped with an incoming text.
“Your phone,” Sophie said.
“Oh, maybe it’s that Allison,” I said looking at the clock. “It’s late.”
“It’s Marcos!” she said.
“What?” My stomach jumped the slightest bit. My hands were full so I asked her, “What does it say?”
“Hi, it’s Marcos. This is my number. Please let me know a good time to come by. I’m happy to help. Smiles.” Sophie looked up at me. “Smiles?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What is he helping with?” It took me a minute to answer as my mind wandered. Why was Marcos texting me? He must have had my number from when he taught Sophie.
“Mom!” Sophie said.
“You know how everyone is always asking to help us? I told him about the guitars and stuff. He’s going to help me sort out what to do with all of it,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Cool.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
Sophie let me kiss the top of her head. I drained the pasta. I added the sauce. Got the parmesan cheese. I put down two bowls. Two forks. Two napkins.
Sophie got us both some water. Although I may have had wine.
I sat down at the counter.
“Come eat, Smoosh.”
Sophie sat next to me.
We had a counter in the kitchen that the three of us usually sat at and had all of our meals on. It was large but we only had two barstools for it. One of us always sat on a smaller stool or stood. We hadn’t had to pull over the small stool since Joel died. I thought that with every meal.
So Sophie and I sat in the kitchen, eating pasta late on a Friday night. The dogs were in their beds. The house was quiet.
I picked up my phone to look at Marcos’s text. Just seeing his name made me smile a little. I asked for help and here he was, offering it.
Smiles, he wrote. Was that the point?
If so, it was working.
FOURTEEN
Easy
Are you going to start crying again?” Allison asked as I sipped my cappuccino. I nodded yes as I reached for my napkin to dab my eyes.
“I get it,” she said, and then took a bite of her omelet.
This was our first meeting. The Meeting of The Widows. We had made a plan via text and here we were, a month after she first reached out and left me a message. Allison and I recognized each other from the neighborhood and hugged upon saying hello.
“I have a feeling that our husbands are also meeting for the first time. Like they’re with us. Or at least watching us.”
“You think so?” Allison said.
I liked this Allison Frank. She had an easy smile and warm brown eyes and never stopped talking. She told me about Brad, her husband who had died unexpectedly three years ago. It looked like he dropped dead of a heart attack, but an autopsy revealed it was amyloidosis—a disorder where abnormal proteins in your blood can cause life-threatening organ failure. Brad sounded like someone with a great sense of humor. I’m sure Joel and I would have loved him. She told me about her twin teenage daughters, whom I couldn’t wait to introduce to Sophie. She told me about her connection to our temple and rabbi. She named some other youngish widows and widowers in the neighborhood. But she also told me about the kind of music she liked and what books and movies she recently enjoyed. She told me about her recent travels and where she grew up in Florida, which, coincidentally, is where my grandmother used to live. She told me about co
usins of hers who had come to town, and all of the places she took them. She knew a lot about a lot of things. She was a little rough around the edges, extremely down-to-earth, and I felt that even if we didn’t have widowhood and “only” parenting in common, we would be friends.
She seemed to have a full life. She had a lot of friends and always had plans. She had figured out how to make a life without her husband.
“I’m open to meeting someone; it just hasn’t happened yet.”
“I still feel married to Joel,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “But I doubt he wants you to be alone.”
I nodded. Tears started to flow again.
“I don’t know how to be with someone who’s not him,” I admitted.
“You’ll have to figure that out, I guess,” she said.
“So listen,” she said as we were about to leave. “When Brad died, another young widow reached out to me, and it helped. Which is why I reached out to you. So now maybe if you hear of someone whose spouse dies, you’ll reach out to them. It’s like a little widow hotline.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I said. “It took me weeks just to call you back.”
“Well, maybe one day you’ll feel differently. Or we’ll do it together.”
“Like a widow club or something?” I said, shaking my head. “It’s so sad, it’s funny.”
I pictured a bat signal in the sky, only it was a sad face emoji, or a skull and crossbones, that would let us know that someone had died and left someone else behind.
“Widows to the rescue!” I said.
“Well,” Allison said, smiling, “it’s really hard in the beginning. It’s nice to talk to someone who has been there.”
Friends who had encouraged me to return Allison’s call were right. It did help sitting down and talking with another youngish widow. I liked hearing about her daughters, and I liked hearing about her openness to dating. It had crossed my mind, too, but then as soon as I’d have the thought, Joel would pop into my mind, and I simply couldn’t imagine it.
Who else will I even be attracted to? Who else will I want to open my heart to? Who other than Joel will even come close to understanding me?
I was intrigued by what the psychic had told me about someone new, but I had no idea who she meant. When I’d mention to Ellie that the psychic said there’s a new man on the horizon and he’s someone I already know, we would laugh over who it might be.
Widowish: A Memoir Page 12