Spent yesterday helping two “older” women.
One is moving to Nebraska in two weeks. She is such a beautiful person. She laughs easily, doesn’t worry but flows with life. She is 84. Her husband passed away about 3 years ago. She’s sorting through her “stuff” of life. It’s hard for her to get rid of a lot of things. She said “they’re memories” and they clearly made her happy thinking of them. She would have great belly laughs as she would tell me about each piece and what it meant to her.
I have met one other person — a friend of mine — who died last year who had such a cheerful countenance when I was with her. She was 89. Her life was in turmoil as she was unhappy in her “new” marriage of 8? years or so. Her husband was always on the phone with another woman who he said he would have married had it not been for her husband.
Shortly after he married my friend, this other woman’s husband passed away and he had every day contact with her. He would tell her how he really wanted to be with her but now he was married. Had he only waited another year they could have been together.
How would that make one feel? Having one’s husband tell another woman that if he wasn’t married he would be with her?
Unworthy? Inadequate? A failure? At 89 one should not have to go through that emotional roller coaster.
My friend died — being okay with dying. Perhaps she couldn’t handle the emotional pain of not being wanted.
And yet, she kept a smile on her face and “served” her husband well.
In the end, he went to live with this woman who kicked him out after 6 months.
Life …
