Recently I spoke with a relative just days after his spouse of over 50 years had passed. I expressed the things I had to learn before my husband passed. It was mostly items such as the care and use of the lawn mower, our small generator (if needed), cleaning the dryer vent one to two times a year.
The beauty of our 36 year marriage was we shared nearly every chore. We didn't have landscapers, neither cleaning ladies. No, we were a typical middle class couple with two kids and three pets. And I can say, my husband was entrenched in our chores. We never had to ask one another much of anything when it came to that.
However, as I've listened to people who'd suddenly lost a spouse of decades I noticed the difference in those relationships. As devoted as they were to each other, I had a woman over 20 years ago tell that she didn't know how to shut the water off in her home. She had no clue about their home in nearly every way. She'd then realized upon her husband's death that she knew nothing. Here was this independent, well-educated, wife, mother, business person not involved in many of the intricacies of running her own home that she shared the responsibility with her husband. She'd expressed how humiliating it was. She had thought she knew everything that needed to be known and sadly she stated, she admittedly had no clue.
After she'd expressed this in my office that day, I checked in with my husband that evening. And asked, "What do I not know about the house that you know?"
There were small things, but I made certain I knew what they were in a general sense. Too, I knew about maintenance of those items and if I couldn't accomplish something myself, I'd know who to ask for help. Everything else I could figure out, I just had to be patient.
As I spoke with this relative the other night, checking in to see how he was doing. I'd realized his circumstances of loss were quite different than mine. He'd expressed how he'd had a tough time sleeping, yet got rest. Just not his usual. I can say my sleep was not effected too much after the death of my husband. I think it was because our children were still minors and in high school. This relative has grandchildren now.
Also, this widower is social. Has friends where he lives. I'm not social, my husband was the social otter. I have a good-sized lawn and middle class house to work with. His property is handled by the HOA and his home is smaller than ours.
As he spoke last night and I listened. He explained how there were things he had to learn right before his wife's death. I was a little stunned, because my husband and I had shared so much of household responsibilities throughout our years.
I then expressed to him, "Well, get a load of this... when my mother ended up in the hospital on my 15th birthday, we didn't know when she was coming home. There was us three kids. My brother was older than I by two years and my sister was 18 months old. While my mother remained in the hospital for about six weeks my dad had a hec of a time running the household items. He didn't even know how to write a check. That is because my mother handled all the finances as well. My dad mowed the lawn, fixed the sidewalk and at times did oil changes on the cars." Thats what my dad understood.
My mother and I washed clothes in our bathtub on a metal and wooden scrub board, then hung them out on our laundry line outside, or on our makeshift laundry line in the basement. We rarely went to the laundromat.
My dad knew landscaping type things. He did know how to cook, so that wasn't an issue. Yet, he was a social otter, a party guy who drank a six pack a night, smoked unfiltered cigarettes, grew and smoked his own pot.
I'm certain however, he did not appreciate being thrown into my mother's anti-social world of housekeeper, child caregiver and financier of their relationship. She did work part-time as well. That was so the kids had clothing, shoes and perhaps a few swims in the summer at a public lake somewhere within 15 miles of our home.
My dad had no concept of money, yet he controlled what he'd been paid after my mother would request money from him so she could pay for the taxes, utilities and the mortgage.
He'd stated in later years after their divorce, "I thought giving her money for a new dress would make her happy. But she never bought one. She'd spend it on you kids."
Talk about someone far removed from the corporation of a marriage and supportive husband.
The relative last night was truly involved in family time and taking care of his wife when she could no longer do fine motor activities, nor drive. And his marriage was the opposite experience than I'd witnessed in my childhood. He demonstrated a couple supporting each other regardless come what may. Too, he had a closer experience to that which I had in my marriage. Thank God. ---Jody-Lynn Reicher
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