Pretty Damn Normal

How long is a widow supposed to wait?

Penned April 7, 2025 by Penny Sue Denim

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It is so weird typing this in a journal 7 months after the death of my husband.

My insides are tumbling.  I met this guy, and everything is so wrong about it.

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My kid and I appear at the skate park—a place I would never go, except at my daughter’s pleading. I’m wearing baggy, casual clothes—attire I would never wear, except during a year of unbearable grief. I look up, and his daughter stands before us.

Our kids’ acquaintanceship is budding into friendship. His deaf daughter and my bereaved one.  They can’t really talk, but they get by.  Not unlike their parents.

Nobody really knows where anybody stands with anybody about anything.

Photo by Anthony Adu on Unsplash

I find his little boy especially endearing. His daughter is not less lovely. She glows.  However, right now, regrettably, my self-protective instinct is on high alert, guarding me from the labour of being an accommodating communicator.

My daughter says, “Can you tell them, Mom?”

“Tell them what?”

“About Dad.”

“I dunno.  I’ll try if the opportunity arises.”

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Twenty minutes later, standing on the pirate-themed play structure with my hand in the shape of a hook, I’ve said (for some reason I can’t recall, though I know it fit nicely), “Our family is just girls.  The three of us. . .”

“Where is her dad?” says the little boy.

I can’t quite tell if his dad is in or out of earshot.

“Well. . .” I say.

My phone rings. It’s my teen.

Now I’m off the phone.

My younger one is saying, “I’m sad.”

I hug her.

“Don’t tell them,” she says. “I don’t want you to tell them.”

“Ok.” I say.

The moment has passed anyhow. Phew.

It’s “pretty damn normal”—this is what my therapist would say—to have a dad crush. To fall head over lunch kits for the most unlikely person.  Not my type but still somehow alluring. Probably ten years younger than me (Gah! What if it’s more?).  BMX boy, rough around the edges, single dad, divorced or never quite married.  My extreme disorientation has barred me from any awareness of his actual height.  Under 6 foot? That would never work.

But. The way he embraces his daughter with his ASL hand gestures.  The way he talks to and about his kids.  His quiet unassuming presence.  How he texts, “We had a great time” when a “kids had fun” would do. Offers to bring coffee when a “see you there” would do.

Against everything in me, I resist labelling this “insanity, inappropriate, foolishness.”  Because I’ve spent enough time in both self-condemnation and insanity, defined colloquially.

Photo by Augustine Wong on Unsplash

So what if I want good, or at least not entirely bad, sensations raging through me for a change?

I say “not entirely bad” because I’ve never been much for roller coaster rides. Yesterday Me thought the task was avoiding discomfort at all costs. Today Me wonders whether the task is surrendering, trusting, and proceeding with integrity. Perhaps discomfort—and even pain—are the normal, sometimes inevitable wages of taking an approach that makes “the process” unavoidable.

So, I creep him online when I get home, while my kids stare into their screens. I still can’t discern how tall—or how old—he is. I wonder how much it matters. I’m dismayed when I imagine it matters a lot. I’m liberated when I imagine it doesn’t. Then I switch sides, feeling relieved that it does matter, and terrified otherwise. I wonder who determines such matters. Also, how long is a widow supposed to wait before leaving the door ajar for romance?

The surrender is palpable, and I haven’t stopped tumbling.

~ ps denim

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With accompaniment from My Unapologetic Playlist: