{"id":34632,"date":"2021-11-20T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T08:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=34632"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:45:11","slug":"talk-to-my-deceased-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/talk-to-my-deceased-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"Talk to My Deceased Husband? I Can’t Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"talk<\/a>
Jon working up a sweat on his recumbent bike, which he acquired after our gym shut down during the covid pandemic. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of my widow friends keeps a photo of her husband on the center console of her car. Another talks to her absent spouse . . . Talk to my deceased husband? I can’t do that. I can’t talk to Jon or intentionally seek out his company without falling apart, without going to that awful place where Jon is no more.<\/p>\n

I can’t even come across an old photo of Jon, or pass through the men’s department at Macy’s where I used to buy his Dockers, or get an unexpected glimpse of the neighbors’ cat, Jon’s favorite, without invoking the ever-ready tears. Also the sobs, which after all these months have turned hoarse and noisy.<\/p>\n

Instead, most of the time, I stay in that magical place where Jon is not actually gone. He’s just somewhere else for now. At a baseball game, maybe. Or on the recumbent bike at the gym, working up a sweat.<\/p>\n

The Gutters Are Clean, the Light Bulbs Changed<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Most of the time I’m doing what my kids figure is “doing OK.” I attend to things. I make myself healthy meals. I get the taxes done. I get the gutters cleaned. The mail gets opened and the light bulbs changed.<\/p>\n

I spend pleasant hours on-line deciding between azaleas for the new side yard — or some California natives<\/a> with cool names like checkerbloom, blue-eyed grass, sandhill sage and crevice alumroot.<\/p>\n

Kindly friends invite me over for dinner, and I tell my funny stories. If the stories aren’t funny, I don’t find out. My friends laugh and invite me over again anyway.<\/p>\n

Once in a while, I hear my own self laughing.<\/p>\n

Full Disclosure<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Truth be told, however, there has, in fact, been that one instance in which I did call upon Jon.<\/p>\n

It was only that once, and I was desperate.<\/p>\n

I was spending a week with Peter, his wife and the grandkids in the Great Midwest last summer and one day, after visiting a friend, I was driving a rental car on an unfamiliar freeway.<\/p>\n

Out of the blue, I realized a big interchange was coming up. A fast-moving lane change was required. But which lane? The wrong choice and I’d wind up in Peoria and miss dinner with the kids.<\/p>\n

I did what I always did when I was driving and Jon was riding shotgun. I shouted at him. “Hey, Jon. Help me out here. Which lane?”<\/p>\n

I made the lane change, the right one. I got where I was going. I was on time for dinner.<\/p>\n

Did I thank Jon for his help?<\/p>\n

Of course not. I would not have thanked Jon for helping me out when he was alive. (Who thanks their spouse for every little thing?)<\/p>\n

And I did not do it on that summer day, when Jon wasn’t there any more. Because if I thanked him, I’d cry. I’d fall apart, and I had one more lane change to make.<\/p>\n

More about that garden, before its transformation, at “This Summer I’d Like to Travel to the Ends of — My Back Yard.”<\/a>\u00a0 A peek at some California wildflowers in the wild at “At Pt. Reyes, Wild Flowers and . . . Animals, Wild and Tame.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"talk<\/a>
At Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, a Point Reyes checkerbloom seedling, ready to plant. Talk to my deceased husband about what to plant where? I’m not ready to do that. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"man-on-recumbent-bike\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Talk to my deceased husband? Some widows can. Not me. I can’t talk to Jon without going to that awful place where he is no more.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[103,2533,187,34,191,82,2534,2535,2419],"class_list":["post-34632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-aging","tag-checkerbloom","tag-death","tag-dont-miss","tag-grief","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-recumbent-bike","tag-talk-to-deceased-husband","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34632","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=34632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49404,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34632\/revisions\/49404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}