Ask the Sophist: Is there something wrong with being sad about being widowed?
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 82
ASK THE SOPHIST
Good Grief
Hi, The Sophist,
In a few months, it'll be the one-year anniversary of my wife dying. We were married for 16 years, and we were in love, and she was my best friend. Pancreatic cancer is some evil bullshit. She didn't even get to live 50 years of her amazing, beautiful life, and she was a stupendous force for good in this world.
I'm having a hard time coming up with ladders out of this persistent grief. I've approached it academically and read most everything in the "grief lit" universe. C.S. Lewis was a good one, even for this atheist. I've got a therapist—mediocre, but alternatives are sparse.
I've tried to Google famous people who've lost spouses. I've tried to exercise and travel. But I remain bereft. We didn't have any kids. No meaningful family support networks to speak of. Any sage advice?
Thanks,
Despondent & Widowed
Dear Despondent,
Please accept The Sophist's condolences and sympathies. This column tends to deal with sublimated and deflected problems, in the name of helping people sublimate and deflect them more effectively, but you walked straight in, so first of all, as one human being to another: I'm sorry, that's an unbearable event, and I wish you as much comfort and peace as you can find.
The Sophist does not want to overpromise you that comfort and peace, though. At least, not yet. Your letter is a beautiful and moving tribute to your wife and to the love you shared, but the most heartbreaking part, and what reads like a key to it all, is your first line. In a few months, you wrote, it will be one year—that is, it is not even one year yet.
You refer to your condition as "persistent grief." It sounds much more like essential, adjective-free grief. You're still taking your first turn through the calendar without her after 16 years, plus however long you may have been together before marriage. Every new day, no matter how trivial, is inscribed with her absence. Did you know Star Wars Day was basically invented in 2011? That means that until two days ago, you had never had to hear a "May the Fourth Be With You" without her. A fact as dumb as that can shatter a heart all over again.
I can't help noticing you didn't ask The Sophist to tell you it was going to get better. It will get better, most likely, if the human experience runs true to form, or rather it won't get better—you have lost someone irreplaceable, and her irreplaceability is the heart of your pain and your blessing alike—but over time you will find the room for other feelings, other events, even other people. What your letter is really asking The Sophist to justify for you, though, is the fact that right now, your grief still hurts. How could it not? Why would it not?
Let it. This entire country has gone out of its mind because more than a million people died from Covid and everyone decided to pretend it was no big deal. Whatever version of the soul or of human nature you may personally believe in, that essential self wasn't built to shrug off loss.
It's good that you're looking for consolation. Exercise and travel and targeted reading may not have made you feel better, but the fact that you're trying them, rather than sinking into hopeless apathy, is a healthy sign. And seeing a therapist, even a mediocre one, is much wiser than just trusting to the snap judgment of a gimmick advice columnist that your sorrow, by your account of it, doesn't sound like depression. Really, though, it doesn't. It just sounds like a proportionate reaction to one of the most terrible things that could possibly happen to someone.
I'd tell you you're not alone, but you are. We all are, ultimately, when death comes our way. We build a life story with someone and then one of us is left telling it to themself on behalf of the both. We're alone, and we're in this together. Keep traveling, keep exercising. Look for your own way to be a force for good in the world. People are going to be out in the streets, and they'll be happy to see another person out there with them. Write a letter to an advice columnist who needs some letters. It may not feel like much, next to the big feeling you're carrying with you, but that ladder you're trying to climb only goes up one rung at a time.
Keep in touch,
The Sophist
Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, May 5, 2025
★ Showers arrived and departed and other showers came, and the chill refused to lift. The light was green but dreary. The rains were a moving blob on the radar with trailing pseudopods that made it impossible to estimate when the city might really be out from under it. A new round showed up in time for a much-delayed phone interview, pattering and then clattering louder and louder outside the window screen, too far away to close the sash to hush it. There was no letup when it was time to make a run to the market, over gutters flowing wide.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
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TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Practical Cookery; A Compilation of Principles of Cookery and Recipes and The Etiquette and Service of the Table, by the Department of Food Economics and Nutrition, Kansas State Agricultural College, published in 1921, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
GROUND HAM SANDWICHES
Trim fat from the ham, force it through a food cutter. Season with catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco sauce. Mix with salad dressing. Spread between thin slices of buttered bread.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
