Getting Started: Widowhood 101

 

When I first became a widow, just over a year ago, I felt lost, trying to navigate a new existence without my companion of thirty years. Feeling alone with my thoughts and finding that I had a hard time overcoming my loneliness, I decided to start a journal about my journey and the process of learning how to stabilize my life in this new dimension. I also love cooking, creating and trying new recipes. I have had a long-time ambition to write a cookbook or food column. So, with this blog, I will combine thoughts of widowhood with tidbits about food: focusing on Maine-centric food, learning to cook for one, comfort food, and favorite dishes from years past.

First of all, I don't want to make this a sad and depressing reading experience.  I will refer to sad events now and then, but want to move on to life-affirming thoughts.  Bruce died during the first summer of the pandemic in 2020.  I was relived to be able to opt out of “visiting hours” due to Covid-19 restrictions, thereby saving myself two hours of standing on my feet and trying to listen to well-meaning folks when my mind was in a blur.  The funeral service was military, with an honor guard and was restricted to a 15 minute time slot for the graveside service at the Veteran’s Cemetery. My old Yankee self was determined to be stoic, but that proved very difficult when they played “Taps” and folded the flag and gave it to me, expressing gratitude for this veteran’s service to the country.

So far, being a widow is nothing like I thought it would be. I have lost more than one husband to divorce, which is a painful process and provokes grieving too. I thought I was prepared for the death of my husband because his health had been declining for a few years and only accelerated toward an obvious outcome about three months before he died. During those final three months, I sent him out of the home via ambulance three times and one of those admissions to the hospital was five weeks long. Because of the Covid-19, I did not see him at all for the duration of his admissions. I thought I had become accustomed to living alone during that time. But the utter aloneness and silence that follows death is not at all the same. When he was in the hospital, at least I could speak with him and often called his nurses asking for updates.

After months of essentially being a private duty nurse in a one-person ICU here at home, I was exhausted. He was on oxygen and his room had a hospital bed and lift chair, and we had an intercom so he could call me for middle-of-the-night emergencies. He needed help with basic things so I was caring for him fourteen hours a day, and rushed to his side during the night many times. The one thing I knew for sure after his death, was that I needed to sleep. Therefore, I was surprised when I had trouble sleeping at night. I fell asleep O.K. but when I woke up in the middle of the night, the thoughts were relentless. My mind played back images of him at various points during his final illness, all very disturbing memories.

Although I shed many tears, well before our final goodbye, as I had realized that we were on that final slippery slope, I had not yet had what my friend would call “a good cry”. That came when I laid down to take a nap one month after he died.  I can’t even recall what triggered the overwhelming sadness, but I cried like a little child cries, with heart-wrenching sobs. This caused my black lab to join me with a howling session, and both dogs joined me on the single bunk daybed to console me.

I cried until I howled
And I howled until I cried

And the dogs howled with me

The pain is more than I imagined

The silence is too quiet

The home is too empty
My heart is still full of love

 I have had the blessing of lots of support from friends and family and for that I am very grateful. I’ll be on this journey for some time, I know, and look forward to sharing my thoughts as I navigate life without my first mate, in the hopes that it helps others. And most of all, I want to share the joy of simple food, well-cooked, as a healing pleasure.

I have chosen a soup as my first shared recipe. Although I am locally renowned for my fish chowder, hence my nickname "Fish Chowder Faye",  I’ll save that recipe and story for a future blog. This soup is one that I created to use fresh crabmeat from the island of Vinal Haven, where I spent vacations in summers past. Like a chowder, it shares seafood and cream as ingredients, and the briny sweetness of the crabmeat pairs well with the grassy, tender asparagus and heat from pepperjack cheese.  The joy is that this is a 15-minute recipe!

Crabby-gras Soup

8 oz. fresh crabmeat

1 fourteen oz. can of chicken broth

1 bunch of asparagus

½ cup light cream

2 tablesp. butter

½ cup shredded pepper jack cheese

 

Cut asparagus into spoon size lengths.

Put chicken broth in soup pot, add asparagus and cook until just tender (less than 5 minutes)

Add crabmeat and reheat slowly. Add butter, cream and shredded cheese and reheat, taking care not to boil soup. Serve with oyster crackers.