Widows and Orphans

Serendipity...Synchronicity...Karma. What ever. It happened and for the good of 3 widowed souls, methinks.

Tuesday ~ October, 4, 2005

Last minute plan change had me headed home sooner than expected. My newly widowed neighbor was at her mail box and I stopped to speak. Nearly 2 hours later I made it home.

I've lived in this neighborhood since 1974, her son and my daughter played together as kids and young teens, she was the ER nurse during Jim's first 2 heart attacks...yet, I learned more about this woman in that 2 hours than I've managed in the previous decades of "knowing" her.

Her isolation is unbelievable...no in-laws, no parents, one critically ill sibling and one grown son who struggles with sobriety and part-time custody of his 2 bewildered children. She retired 3 weeks after Bobby died because her grief was such that she was afraid she'd make a critical error and cost a patient their life. (She'd already used all the family leave time AND taken a leave of absence while he was so ill.)

Her main contact is another widow in this neighborhood nearly housebound caring for her ailing, elderly mother who gets hysterical if anyone other than the youngest grown (and working) grandson comes to stay while Carol tends to errands.

I'm glad I stopped...but, I feel like a clod for not knowing these 2 women were so isolated. Yet...I should have...I know how this works...I certainly shut myself away from the world as much as possible for nearly a year after Jim died.

Wake up, Josie...your life is much uncomplicated compared to theirs. Methinks it's time to reach outside myself here at home.

At any rate, I'm going to try.

Wednesday ~ October 5, 2005

After 3 cups of coffee, hemming and hawing for 2 hours, I finally took the phone and rang up the other widow in my small rural locale. A woman I’ve known as long as I’ve lived in this little blue collar subdivision plopped out here inna middle of an old cow pasture in the boonies.

My “other mother” as a young wife, new to both the city and the south. First as my sitter and then my friend, we connected in a way that seemed important to both of us. Her youngest son became sitter to my youngest son years down the road. Her middle son named his first son after our first son. Her oldest son was my yard boy, charging me only $25 to mow (push mower) and rake 1 ½ acres of uneven ground.

In fact, it was he who heard me ask the pastor of the small neighborhood church if he knew anyone who kept children in their home as I was needing to work to help pay our newly acquired mortgage. As the preacher was saying “No”, this young, slim blond child said shyly “My mom keeps kids.” Conversation revealed that they lived only a block away; the beginning of a life long relationship with this woman, her children and her grands.

Somewhere along the way life took us on different paths rotating around until it united us on the one journey we never expected. She wouldn’t let me feel guilty for letting our lives drift…how like her to do so.

2 ½ hours…laughing, crying, talking…reconnecting. What a gift.

Next week on my way home from my Tuesday morning creative venture I will pick up pizza and 3 middle-plus aged women will sit around a comfortable kitchen table talking, eating and drinking that southern staple - sweet tea.

For a space the world will revolve around just us.