{"id":34511,"date":"2021-11-13T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T08:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=34511"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:46:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:46:59","slug":"the-we-ness-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-we-ness-of-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed and the We-Ness of Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"widowed<\/a>
Ours: Jon and I traveled in Italy in 2007 with our two kids. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve been widowed for nearly nine months now. And I still can’t let go of the we — the we-ness of marriage.<\/p>\n

Talking to the landscape designer, it’s our<\/em> backyard. With the plumber, it’s the toilet in our<\/em> downstairs bath. When the handyman arrives in his truck, it’s OK for him to block our<\/em> driveway. When the gutter guys come by later this month, it will be to clear the debris from our<\/em> gutters.<\/p>\n

What gives?<\/p>\n

Two things.<\/p>\n

I Can’t — Won’t — Let Go of Jon<\/strong><\/h5>\n

First of all, yes, indeed I am having trouble letting go of Jon and the wonderful we-ness of our 44-year marriage. If I let on to myself that our house is now my<\/em> house — my backyard and my clogged gutters, then Jon is indeed gone, once and for all, and there’s no coming back.<\/p>\n

Jon is not coming back. I know that. My frontal lobe knows that. But my other brainy parts hang on to him still. In their experience of things, no way can something as alive and vivid as the person of Jon Newhall be extinguished. It is not possible. Jon is here, there, somewhere, and this is still our house and our broken toilet.<\/p>\n

My, Mine — It Feels Selfish<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Second of all, it doesn’t feel right to talk about my<\/em> new patio. Or my bedroom. It feels selfish, self-centered.<\/p>\n

When I was young and single, I relished having my own place — my apartment, furnished with my woolen braid rug, my tippy dining table acquired at a thrift shop, and my lumpy mattress, also from a thrift shop.<\/p>\n

But then along came Jon, and over the decades I’ve spent with him, I have acquired a taste for the we of things.<\/p>\n

(Notice that I wrote “the decades I’ve spent with him” — implying the action is ongoing. If I had written, “decades I spent with him,” I’d be describing a time done and over with, wouldn’t I?)<\/p>\n

For all these years, it has been our house, our kids, our bank accounts, our new redwood deck shaded by our seven-story cypress tree.<\/p>\n

Of course, this house holds lots of stuff that is mine. My childhood china set, made in post-war Japan, for example. And my collection of folk art<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, Jon hauled the Talavera, the Tlaquepaque<\/a>, the Tonala and the Oaxaca plates home from Mexico and he helped me hang them all over the house. But hand-made folk art is my thing, not his.<\/p>\n

Sliding Into We-Ness<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Over the years with Jon, I was not aware that I was sliding into this we-ness of marriage. It happened without anybody noticing. We bought a house. We had children. We remodeled the kitchen. We ate dinner at 7. We\u00a0 watched the news.<\/p>\n

On our long drives down Highway 5 to Los Angeles to visit our daughter, we would take along our New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle book. Our goal was to finish one of those super tough puzzles by the time we hit the 101.<\/p>\n

Is that nuts, taking turns reading crossword puzzle clues aloud to each other while driving the Interstate? Of course it’s nuts. But that’s Jon and me.<\/p>\n

It was us.<\/p>\n

More from The Grammar Geek at “Is It Ever OK to Use the Passive Voice?”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0And, “Making Friends With the Dread Serial Comma.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"post-war-Japanese-children's-tea-set\"<\/a>
Mine: The things I think of as mine tend to be really, really old — like this miniature, hand-painted lusterware tea set made in post-World War II Japan and given to me as a child. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Father-with-two-grown-kids\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been widowed nearly nine months now, and I still can’t let go of the we — the we-ness of marriage. Here’s why.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,14],"tags":[34,29,2530,2531,2532,2419],"class_list":["post-34511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-writing-room","category-widowed","tag-dont-miss","tag-jon","tag-lusterware","tag-post-war-japanese-china","tag-the-we-ness-of-marriage","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34511","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=34511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49407,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34511\/revisions\/49407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}