{"id":33375,"date":"2021-04-10T00:01:45","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T07:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=33375"},"modified":"2026-06-06T13:00:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T13:00:55","slug":"my-husband-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/my-husband-died\/","title":{"rendered":"My Husband Died, and Denial and Distraction Are My Go-To States for Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"my-husband-died-chimney-rock-hikers\"<\/a>
Hiking with two friends on the Chimney Rock trail kept me distracted for a day. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My husband died, and my friend Pat, also newly widowed, emailed me a list of grief books to read. I have yet to open her email.<\/p>\n

The rector at my church gave me the name of a grief counselor. I haven’t called her.<\/p>\n

My husband is gone, and for these past weeks I’ve pretty much kept that brutal fact at bay.<\/p>\n

A Daughter at Work in Jon’s Office<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Daughter Christina was here in the house with me for four of the first five weeks of this terrible new life of mine.<\/p>\n

She has a full-time job, so she took her laptop upstairs to Jon’s office and reported for work Mondays through Fridays. If she cried up there at Jon’s desk, she kept it to herself.<\/p>\n

\"my-husband-died-consolation-california-poppy\"<\/a>
A California poppy bloomed that day. So did mules ears and cow parsnips.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christina is an inventive cook, and a dear company. While she was here it seemed, most of the time, that Jon had just gone out of the house for a while. He’d be back.<\/p>\n

But then she left.<\/p>\n

Distracted by the Point Reyes Headlands<\/strong><\/h5>\n

With that, my friends Jean and Nini took me on a hike out to the end of Chimney Rock<\/a>, which juts gloriously and distractingly into the Pacific Ocean from the Point Reyes Headlands.<\/p>\n

There was a breaching whale out on the water that day.<\/p>\n

\"elephant-seal-pups-and-mothers-point-reyes<\/a>
Elephant seal pups and their mothers basked on the beach. They were young and had all the time in the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also, elephant seal mothers and pups on the rocky beach down below. Hawks above. And wildflowers all over the place — mules ears, California poppy, yellow bush lupine, cow parsnip, checkerbloom,<\/p>\n

But also: trailside poison oak — grim and luscious — poised to wipe itself on the legs of the careless passerby.<\/p>\n

My Husband Died. The Poison Oak Lives<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Unlike my friends and neighbors in recent weeks, the poison oak is mindless. It feels no compassion. It makes no exception for the grief-stricken. Its waxy leaves reach for my pant legs.<\/p>\n

But I spot the poison oak. I outsmart it. I step aside. Later, when I arrive home, I throw my hiking pants and socks into the wash.<\/p>\n

The next day my skin does not itch. There’s no rash on my ankles. I dodged that bullet. That’s one of nature’s cruelties outwitted.<\/p>\n

Read about Jon at “Jonathan Newhall — My Husband of Forty-Four Years.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"my-husband-died-but-this-poison-oak-did-not\"<\/a>
It was spring. The poison oak was alive and lush with toxic oil.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"my-husband-died-so-I-hiked<\/a><\/p>\n

My husband of 44 years died seven weeks ago. So far, I’ve used denial and distraction to keep my mind off the silence.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,13,14],"tags":[969,146,187,34,191,656,29,2454,88,2455,2456,2419],"class_list":["post-33375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-chimney-rock","tag-christina","tag-death","tag-dont-miss","tag-grief","tag-jean","tag-jon","tag-my-husband-died","tag-nature","tag-nini","tag-poison-oak","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33375"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49524,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33375\/revisions\/49524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}