Pretty Damn Normal
How long is a widow supposed to wait?
Penned April 7, 2025 by Penny Sue Denim
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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
I'm a widower of five year experience now. I'm quite older than you, and at a very different time in my life. However, I have experienced some of the same things you have described. I met a very young widow a couple of years ago. She's raising a 14 year old son and has many family commitments. I helped her celebrate her 35th birthday. I became silly and obsessed, as if I were a young man again. But, I've settled down now, and realized I now have a very nice young friend to communicate with and share experience and clarity with. Here is a poem I wrote for myself a couple of days ago.
"A seasoned widower dating
after a certain age
may be a leash, not a relief.
Living alone after a loss
may be an opportunity for growth.
Dating makes a heart vulnerable,
and puts it in danger of an energy deficit.
You begin to fake happiness
in order to assuage a partner's
desires, while suppressing yours.
Also, dating becomes expensive.
Sharing a bed becomes a challenge.
My house becomes "hers," not mine.
Being alone can become your new happy place
where you can think and plan,
or do absolutely nothing at all.
You sacrifice the freedom
to be who you really are,
while pretending to be
what someone wants to make you over to be.
Living alone does not mean broken!
(Maturity Wins!)
It allows you to have your own life.
Now you can write, enjoy gym time,
enjoy friends that have their own life,
garden in peace, and treasure your "me-time.
When I'm alone,
I prefer to be by myself. "
I happened upon your writing through a recommendation and was intrigued by your question about how long. I am five years widowed and considerably older than you. I entertained the thought of dating or friendship, but those opportunities did not come, or perhaps I chose not to seek them. Now, I have learned to live life on my own terms and have found a degree of contentment I did not think possible after so much utter despair. The reality is that being married 40 years to the love of my life is hard to set aside.
I give you all this background to then turn the tables on you and your story, and tell you that we are not destined to do life alone. If you have a second chance at a form of happiness on your own terms, test it out, no matter the age or time you have been widowed. In my experience, there is no playbook. No one should have to live mired in grief to pay homage to another. Your late husband would not ask that of you; nor would mine. Test the waters and be honest, on some level, with your kids. I found honesty was the best solution as a parent.