widow

[Sylvia Plath] was now far along a peculiarly solitary road on which not many would risk following her. So it was important for her to know that her messages were coming back clear and strong. Yet not even her determinedly bright self-reliance could disguise the loneliness that came from her almost palpably, like a heat haze. She asked for neither sympathy nor help but, like bereaved widow at a wake, she simply wanted company in her mourning.

Oberon__ been kidnapped along with one of the werewolves, and that__ why we__e all so upset. We__l talk more tomorrow, and I promise to answer all your questions if I survive the night,_ I said. The widow__ eyebrows raised. __e__e got all these nasty pooches to run around with and ye still might die?_ ____ going to go fight with a god, some demons, and a coven of witches who all want to kill me,_ I said, __o it__ a distinct possibility._ __re y__oin_ t__ill __m back?_ ____ certainly like to._ __ttaboy,_ the widow chuckled. __ff y__o, then. Kill every last one o_ the bastards and call me in the mornin_.

I felt bad for trying to live a happy, full life, while my heart was buried in a dead man__ chest.

I think first of the children. What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Then I think about money, the house, all those things no widow will tell you ever crossed her mind.

Maybe there is no one way to deal with grief, but knowing that we're not totally alone is the best we can do.

A poor old Widow in her weedsSowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;Not too shallow, and not too deep,And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.Up shone May, like gold, and soonGreen as an arbour grew leafy June.And now all summer she sits and sewsWhere willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;Like Oberon's meadows her garden isDrowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;And all she has is all she needs --A poor Old Widow in her weeds.

Paco, we are all so much more than our faults, aren__ we?

...People are not one-dimensional. People do not live on one plane...

In the first year of my grief, there were times when I felt like hiding my personal story of loss and other times when I wanted to wear a sign on my body that read "Be nice to me, I'm grieving," or "Don't tick me off; I've already got the world on my shoulders," or maybe even "BEWARE - don't upset the widow!" I needed a variety of signs that I could switch out depending on my daily mood.

She did not belong to the healthy group of widows and widowers who, after mourning, would nurture the seed of their grief into growing from loss__erhaps continuing the dreams of the lost, or learning to cherish alone the things they__ cherished together.She belonged instead to the sad lot who clung to grief, who nurtured it by never moving beyond it. They__ shelter it deep inside where the years padded it in saudade layers like some malignant pearl.

I kiss her ghost, and sleep with the dust on her photograph, next to my bedside.

To give herself a measure of credible autonomy, she had decided to invent a husband. Then, in a subsequent flash of inspiration, she had just as quickly killed him off.

Weeping Widows"There is a river that cuts ThroughThe heart of EveAnd flows throughParadise's back window.It streams into A bottomless wellThat rolls down to hellWith the tears of theWeeping widows.The women stand along the well,And cryWhile singing gray lullabiesAs orphaned childrenLight up candles to put on palm leavesTo push into the streamWith petals of jasmine And pieces of tangerine,Then sit back and wait for their fatherTo show up over the horizon Where his heart still beatsIn their dreams.

Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?

I__ learning persistence and the closing of doors, the way the seasons come and go as I keep walking on these roads, back and forth, to find myself in new time zones, new arms with new phrases and new goals. And it hurts to become, hurts to find out about the poverty and gaps, the widow and the leavers. It hurts to accept that it hurts and it hurts to learn how easy it is for people to not need other people. Or how easy it is to need other people but that you can never build a home in someone__ arms because they will let go one day and you must build your own.

Wrapping his arms around her waist, he kissed her cheek. She inhaled his masculine scent, he smelled of engine grease, citrus hand cleaner and man. She turned in his arms and laid her cheek over his beating heart, treasuring the haven of his embrace...

Okay, Charlie, you can do this, all you have to do is convince a career military man that your son shouldn__ join the Army. That shouldn__ be too hard, right?

Giddy-up, giddy-up!" she cried, switching her horse's flanks with one of her mother's long knitting needles as a riding crop. "Take it easy!" Bear protested. "I'm going as fast as I can!" Caroline had to laugh at the sight. "Now if you don't ride nicely, I'll buck you off and run for the woods!" "No, you won't," retorted Bianca smugly. "It's too cold out there. Giddy-up!