Living Without My Love

Twelve days before he died, Ken and I celebrated Valentines Day as close to normally as we could manage.  He insisted on getting up from his hospice bed to walk across the kitchen so we could sit together at a candlelit table in the dining room.  He ate a few bites of the surf and turf I cooked at his request, and he gave me some earrings that he sent our daughter out to buy a few days earlier.  Of all the ways I miss my husband, his romantic love is one of the toughest parts to handle.  We don’t get this kind of attention from people other than our partners and since it is such a personal and private subject, we don’t talk about it much.

This somewhat obvious realization came to me as I was going through some of his papers recently.  As Ken became sicker there was little energy for passion, and with our focus elsewhere for so many months, the recognition caught me off guard.  I came across a note he had handwritten, back before we had smart phones to record all of those things we did not want to forget.  An old friend of ours had delightful Polish parents, and we enjoyed visiting with them on occasion.  We must have seen them on September 22, 1999, because Ken had written the father’s name, with this date, and the heading “Old Polish proverb”.

And I cried as I read it.  “As long as a woman is desired, she will never grow old.” Mr. Konapelsky was a self-described lover, a man who adored his wife of many decades, and I can imagine that he told this to Ken to remind him of one aspect of marital harmony under his control: cherish your wife.  I know when Ken looked at me, he saw the girl I was at 19, even though she has been hardly visible for years and precious few others remember her.  Knowing my partner thought I was beautiful, even as my physical appearance changed, made me feel valued and appreciated.

Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that my worth comes from way more than how I look.  But the reality of basic human behavior is that most of us are wired with the urge to procreate and wanting to look attractive to others is part of those impulses.  Primal instincts don’t necessarily disappear just because we age out of our child bearing years.

As he was being wheeled into the embolization during his last hospitalization, Ken told me he wanted me to remarry…hardly something I could spare a thought about in that moment, but an issue that was on his mind.  As of now I do not feel ready to dip my toes in the dating pool, but I do hope to have another partner again one day.  Even with an active social life, the nights can be lonely, and I miss sex.  Unfortunately, and what Ken probably didn’t realize, is that the chances of this happening are pretty slim.

According to some friends on dating apps, the first criterion of many men my age on these platforms is that their potential dates be about 20 years younger.  So where does this leave me?  Dating men older than their average life expectancy?  That sounds like a small sample size, and I’m not sure I could handle widowhood again anytime soon.  Adding to this unfortunate truth, I can see that women simply outnumber men once we get to this age.  In the limited data set of our Christmas card list, in my generation, there are a half dozen widows and no widowers; in my parents’, there are twice as many widows as widowers.  Nationwide, in 2022, there were 11.5 widows and only 3.7 million widowers, more like 3:1.  Not that people who have lost their spouses can only hope to date people in the same situation, but you get the picture.  Further, according to the National Institute of Health, less than 5% of women widowed after 55 ever remarry.  I hope that statistic doesn’t also apply to sex. In any case, I’m thinking things do not look favorable to fulfill Ken’s directive.      

Of course, marriage wouldn’t necessarily be the goal of dating.  What I believe Ken was trying to express in those panicked moments as he hemorrhaged, was that he did not want me to be deprived of companionship and touch and affection just because I would be deprived of him.  But the idea of even dating feels overwhelming right now, when I can still easily be brought to tears by the smallest reminder of him.  And no one can replace his role in keeping that girl of 19 from growing old.  Aging didn’t seem as bad when I had someone to share it with either.  Now that girl feels lonesome and vulnerable.

I was at a sporting event yesterday, sitting behind a young man with naturally curly hair, similar to Ken’s when we first met.  Luckily the color was different than his or I may have been sobbing.  His father sitting next to him had the same hair, in the heavily salt and pepper version that Ken would’ve had in a  few more years, in a cut that was closer to how Ken wore his in middle age.  I miss touching Ken’s hair.  It thinned and it grayed over the years and then grew finer from the chemotherapy but it never lost its allure to me…perhaps I was keeping him young too.      

I don’t put this out there in the hopes of getting someone’s divorced brother’s phone number (although I might keep it for later) but to emphasize another way I struggle.  Even now, the layers of grief continue to unfold, and the sadness swells from time to time with the intensity of an acute injury.  It is impossible for people to replace who Ken was to me, the man in whose arms I felt both youthful and safe.  Some of my friends have made a valiant effort…but all of the cards and texts and phone calls, and invitations to exercise and go for coffee or dinner can only do so much.  Ken’s absence creates a void that cannot be filled and it is slow going for me to learn how to live in that void.