My friend of many years called to tell me that her husband is dying of cancer and has perhaps six months to live. One of the first things she told me is: “I’m going to be a widow.”
Those seven words were pronounced similar to: “I ate fish for lunch” or “I’m going on vacation.” It was quite a matter of fact. What else did I hear in her voice?
My friend Laura has been married since 1968. Laura and her husband Phil have had their ups and downs over the years. I met them both when my ex-husband introduced us in 1970. Do you remember what 1970 was like? we all partyed like it was 1999. Laura and Phil are six years older than me. We were all at the forefront of the hippie years. Calling us all dysfunctional would be nice. Dysfunction followed us all, like shadows. Some of us turn away from the lifestyle of drug addicts. Some of us don’t.
Laura and Phil spent a couple of years apart while Phil languished in jail for drug possession. Never one to wait patiently, Laura began an affair with another friend while Phil was incarcerated. The affair was known to many of us in our circle of friends, but it was kept low-key. However, Laura’s first child was the product of the affair.
When Phil got out of jail, he and Laura picked up where they left off. No one was convicted in those days for ‘fooling around’. Being silly was something everyone did, some of us were more careful than others. These were the days before AIDS. Phil and Laura may have met, but their clothes didn’t change for many years. While drugs were available, many of the people in our circle of friends were using them. I think some of us had the common sense not to fall completely into the drug trap. Phil, Laura, myself and my ex-husband have never injected drugs. A good thing; it may have been before AIDS, but hepatitis was rampant.
When all the fun and homemade drugs started to wear off, pharmaceuticals were eagerly pursued. These made for interesting times; they were legal, bought cheaply, and every doctor seemed to prescribe them. In retrospect, while I don’t recommend drug use to anyone, today’s alternatives aren’t much different. There are drugs to make you sleep, drugs to make you lose weight, drugs to give you a boner, drugs to keep you from feeling pain or depression. Some things never change, except now, all these drugs are advertised on the nightly news…
Laura and Phil rode this train of drugs and existentialism for years. When the effects of the drugs began to take their toll on their children, they distanced themselves from most of them, and from many of the people who had been part of their circle of friends. In the mid-1970s, many of us, a little more mature and needing to move on, took jobs and blended in with normal society. We all still saw each other from time to time, but weekends weren’t spent at high speeds where no one was sleeping and things got a little out of hand. I’ve heard that all the hippies went to work for IBM; There’s a line in an old Eagles song that goes something like this:
“I saw a Deadhead sticker on a cadillac.” In my case this was almost true; I went to work for a Fortune 500 company, arguably a late start to my career goals. Phil also got a job and started working as an engineer in the city. In those days, engineering jobs in high-rise apartment buildings were very comfortable. The hours lent themselves well to the ex-drug user and there was a lot of freedom as long as the necessary work was completed.
In 1980, AIDS reared its ugly head and we lost more friends to infection from dirty needles. In 1982 I lost track of Laura and Phil when I left my ex-husband to find a life with more social mobility.
Years passed before I reconnected with old friends, and by then most were dead, in jail, moved away, or turned ‘right’. When I saw Laura and Phil again, they had bought a house in the suburbs, were raising their two children, and, except for a little marijuana, had stopped using drugs. Life became pretty normal except for the fact that we survivors seemed to have a kind of X-ray vision: seeing through the ordinary, reaching beyond the suburban lives of our parents.
Since 1982, it seemed that although Laura and Phil had stopped using drugs, they were not growing. They looked no further than the home and sheltered life they built for themselves. It was a sad life in which they both missed those holidays, the days of staying up all night, all weekend, with excitement and enthusiasm. They missed the company of the circle. Every once in a while someone would come back to town to visit and we would all get together and talk about who did what, where they lived, how many children they had. Eventually, the conversation turned to things like, “Remember when we all went out and did such and such with such and such.” “Do you remember when we had the main store on Lawrence Avenue?”
More years passed…
When I married my current husband, it was mainly Laura that I remained friends with. Phil seemed to have lost a lot of the vitality in him. He became withdrawn, he didn’t want to go out much, do much more than watch TV when he wasn’t working.
It was as if he had come down from a long weekend of speeding and never found his natural energy again.
Laura and I talked about things; she always hinted that he was quite unhappy in her life. Her health suffered, Phil’s health was no longer what it was. Phil was abusive, or so she said, he wasn’t interested in sex anymore, he spent too much time at work. The two boys weren’t kids anymore, but they still lived at home and were a burden with their constant drama and heartbreak. It seemed like “Empty Nesters” would never be something Laura and Phil would experience. One of her children was diagnosed with some type of mental disorder, probably caused by Laura’s drug use when she was pregnant. The second child, Phil’s son, showed great promise, but he too grew up in a home where the lack of energy or zest for life never ended; he had no goals, no dreams, no desires.
There came a time in my life when my husband (who was never part of that circle of friends), and I decided it was time to move on with our lives. A circumstance had greatly changed our lives and the direction we had been taking. We moved to a nicer smaller house, put some money into it, renovated and decorated it. It was quite nice, a big change from my hippie girl years. More and more I found myself divorced from the remaining friends from so long ago. But Laura and I keep in touch.
A couple of years ago, out of the blue, Laura called me to tell me that Phil had lung cancer. She was worried about him, she was on chemo and it wasn’t doing well. Her words and her predictions about his health were spoken. But Phil endured: two years of radiation and chemotherapy, medical marijuana, and part-time jobs.
It was last summer that Laura told me that the cancer had returned and that Phil was terribly ill.
When Laura called me today to tell me that Phil was placed in hospice, that the doctors had told them there was nothing more they could do for him and that he had six months to live at best, she told me that she was very sad.
Now, I understand sad. It’s sad to see someone die, and even sadder to be the primary caregiver for someone who is terminally ill. But what was that sound in her voice when he told me that she would soon be a widow?
Was it a relief that Phil didn’t have to suffer a lot? Was it a relief to be relieved of the burden of caring for him after these three years? Was it perhaps that he could see some change in his life?
After all, unless both husband and wife die at the same time, we are all destined to be widowers or widowers. Perhaps it is best that this happens while we are still vital enough to seek another lover. Perhaps the long death that is foreseen will be worse for the one who lives than for the one who dies.
I remember going out with Laura and other friends a long time ago on a Friday night. We all liked to dress up and go out to nightclubs together, dance, drink and flirt. Most of us did nothing but flirt. Others of us did a lot more than flirt. I guess you could say we tested our suitability in the singles bar market. Laura was one of those.
One night, there were six of us women who went out to have fun. We all agreed to stop drinking and leave the club at 1 AM, go out for breakfast and then go home. All but Laura were in the right place at the right time. Laura had come to me, hung up on a disco boy and begged me to wait for her at the restaurant. She was going on an adventure.
Hours later, disheveled and looking radiant, Laura appeared at the restaurant. We were all beginning to worry a little about her, as well as wonder what our husbands would say about being so late. It was the last time we all went out together. It may have been the last time Laura felt desired as a ‘hot girl’. I don’t know. it never matters
Just like it doesn’t really matter now, except that I wonder about the despair in the house where Laura and Phil still live.
One of their children, the youngest son, Phil’s son, still lives at home. Laura has been gradually falling apart for the better part of 10 years. Knee replacements, hip replacements, carpal tunnel surgeries, you name it, Laura has probably had it.
My husband and I thought that some of Laura’s problems could be summed up in Phil’s inattention. Lack of self-esteem from her too, Laura never had it in abundance anyway, and as she’s gotten older, she seems to have taken a vacation.
So what’s in the words “I’m going to be a widow”? Do I hear sadness that such an integral part of her life will soon be gone…perhaps when the passion leaves the marriage, the comfort of a longtime friend still remains? Is that what Laura will miss? Will he miss her partner who knows her so well, in fact, he knows her so well that he may not know who she is for years?
I hope Phil’s death doesn’t rob Laura of that life force she once had. That same life force that made her frolick with disco boys and have adventures and dance the night away. I hope that at the end of it all, Laura doesn’t lose herself in despair or anger. I hope that all the years of caring for Phil, hers and her children, that weigh on her today, will be replaced by a measure of security and contentment.
The words: “I’m going to be a widow” are words that we could all be uttering one day. And who’s to say how we’ll feel about them when we say them?