What you should never say to a widow

Shortly after my husband passed away I was sitting at the office grading papers and weeping. Suddenly I saw my boss standing next to my chair and she asked: “Why are you crying, the worst is over isn't it?”

There are certain things that you should never say to a widow, like making assumptions about how she feels, comparing her plight with that of other bereaved people, or commenting about her future prospects. But that’s beside  the point, I would like to focus on her supposition. Most times we can do very little about the end of life, and being around a loved one, who suffers, without being able to help is unbearable. It is only natural to wish for control over the situation and to imagine how it ends. Moreover, the feeling of relief, once it is actually over, is equally natural. But does it mean that the next stage will be better or easier? I am not sure.

Perhaps this wish for difficult things to end could be compared to something unrelated to death and quite controllable. Many times people who hold high-pressure jobs imagine that they quit. We could see dramatic resignations in the movies since it is quite a popular wish. But in real life those who actually act upon this impulse often report that once the initial relief is over next comes void.

The novelist M.T. (Jean) Dohaney, who lost her husband when she was in her early fifties, captures this feeling of loss in her memoir When Things Get Back To Normal: "I have been daughter, sister, wife, mother. These labels covered only part of me, yet increased all of me. 'Widow' covers all of me and decreases all of me, I learned yesterday that the word widow is derived from the Latin 'viduus' meaning empty.”

Indeed, according to the  etymological dictionary, this is the meaning of the word in several ancient languages. The word “vidhuh” in Sanskrit, for example, means lonely, solitary, and in Latin viduus means bereft and void (from the root to separate).

This feeling of forced separation could explain why so many women who lost their husbands are reluctant to let go of their marital status as wives, and to replace it with widows, on the identity card.

The sociologist Deborah Kestin Van Den Hoonaard argues that although women who lost their spouses try to hang on to their identities as wives, they no longer have the social resources to do so. She calls that condition: “Identity foreclosure.”  It is as though, as a result of a foreclosure, they find themselves with all their belongings out on the street. They don't know who they are to themselves, who they are to their close friends, and how to fit into society.

I remember well the feeling of  shock and  confusion that Van Den Hoonaard describes. However, after careful consideration I am inclined to agree with the conclusion that upon losing my husband the worst was over. Everything that came later was somewhat easier because, at that point, it was up to me.

The essay appeared in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-you-should-never-say-to-a-widow/

Kafka's Wish And The End Of Red Room

Kafka’s wish, that all the writing which he had ever produced would be destroyed after his death, was not respected due to the disobedience of his friend and admirer Max Brod. Since he  did not burn his writing himself, Kafka  lost control over  the destiny of his work.

This is an early example of the impossibility to control our personal information, and it is very pertinent to today’s cyber world. I don’t mean to suggest that Kafka’s writing is in anyway similar to other information which we could find on the net today, but in essence the inability to determine what will happen with one’s writing  is the same.

A lot has been written about the footsteps which we leave behind when we use the internet. Those trails are the data used by different interests or sellers when they offer us their services and products.

However, until  the last couple of weeks,   I never stopped to think about my control over my personal information,  or in other words, my writing: conference papers,  literary translations, and a biweekly blog, among others.

My chosen site was Red Room, its motto:  “where the writers are,” indicated its focus, and it was no surprise that at least most of the users, were like me, people who write. It was a lively and busy community where members wrote and got responses, where special  events, like Mother’s  Day or Thanksgiving were celebrated with special blogs. In addition, it had a genuine atmosphere of good-will  which promoted friendships.

And then, out of the blue, in the beginning of  July the Red Room community got the announcement that the site would  be closed in 5 days, there was no explanation why.

  It was a big shock, somehow due to lack of experience in the digital world, I never saw it coming. I thought that Red Room would last forever, and  was convinced that my material there would be always secure. I never expected anything to change.  Upon hearing the news I felt deceived, it was as though someone whom I grew to love and respect turned out to be a married man with another family.

Now when the shock has somewhat dissipated, I wonder about my blindness, how come I never thought to ask questions about the fortitude of that site. Before I invest money in a company I read about it to check whether it is a sound  investment (and still I could be wrong). How come it didn’t occur to me to do the same here, in the site where I invested all my energy and time?

And I am sure that I was not the only one; there were many other writers in Red Room and I never read any one raising a question about the business aspect of the site. I know that I was there to enjoy Red Room, it was a safe environment and I felt good in that happy bubble and never wanted to know about the world outside.

As I went through my blog posts copying and pasting them into Word document, in order to save them,  I felt sad. It was because it was the end of an era and also  because I knew that my “age of innocence”  was over.  From now on I  have  to take responsibility for my information, as much as I can.

It was too easy to leave it in the competent hands of the site owners,  but  eventually they had to take care of themselves.

I need to grow up and do the same