Uncoupled

We had a crowd around the table for Thanksgiving – some family, and two couples who were friends. Among the family was my 95-year-old dad, hard of hearing and legally blind. One of the first things he said as he sat at his place was that someone must have laid his watch down and forgotten it. (Dad mistook the napkin ring for a watch.) People laughed and told him what it was. Dad didn’t laugh; he didn’t know one of the couples at the table and was probably embarrassed. I can’t recall that he said another thing throughout the meal. I thought about it later and thought that had it been me, I would have talked with my husband about it later that evening in bed – pillow talk – and shared my embarrassment with him, and he would have told me to forget about it – it didn’t mean anything. The point I’m getting at is that people who are alone, who have lost a spouse and who now walk, perhaps for the first time, uncoupled in the world, have no one with whom to share their secrets. I have thought that often since mom died six years ago, when I thought dad would be about to say something but then didn’t. And now as we come into the most difficult time of year for those who are alone, I think about it again. When you’re alone (and without a BFF!), you have no one with whom to share your secrets – big ones and silly ones, ones bursting for a tell and ones that are plain gossip. There’s just something so wondrous about the companionship of a partner – the intimacy of that relationship – which encourages every manner of sharing. Losing that, if you have ever had it, must be devastating. If you know people who have been recently widowed or divorced, this would probably be a good time of the year to be especially aware of including them. It certainly won’t take away their pain or loneliness, but it may lessen the feeling of emptiness just enough to ease them through the holidays.