{"id":34875,"date":"2022-01-08T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T08:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=34875"},"modified":"2026-06-06T10:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T10:10:30","slug":"advice-from-a-dead-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/advice-from-a-dead-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: Advice From Beyond the Grave — Party On!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"advice<\/a>
At a wedding shower — gifts to be opened, a future to be celebrated.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don’t talk to Jon. Some of the widows I’ve met in recent months say they have conversations with the men who have gone out of their lives. They chat with them. They run things by them. They ask for advice. Apparently, it’s possible to get advice from a dead husband.<\/p>\n

I don’t go to Jon for advice. I don’t talk to him. I avert my eyes when I come across a photo of him lest it put me face-to-face with that awful fact — the one that says Jon is gone and he isn’t coming back.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Jon gave me some advice anyway.<\/p>\n

The One-Year Anniversary<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The anniversary of Jon’s death — February 19 — is coming up. The widows I’ve been talking to all say they’ve made a special day of the one-year anniversary.<\/p>\n

I thought I’d follow suit. I’d ask the kids to consider coming to town for the occasion. We’d drive across the Bay Bridge to Colma, where Jon is buried amidst dozens of Newhalls going back generations.<\/p>\n

It would be a solemn day. We’d lay something on Jon’s grave. Jon doesn’t like cut flowers, so I’d have to think of something biodegradable to leave there.<\/p>\n

I’d cry. The reality of Jon’s absence would get a little more real, and I’d get a little closer to accepting its truth.<\/p>\n

A day of formal mourning seemed the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

But then I learned that a young friend’s wedding shower was scheduled for the same weekend. She’s a good friend. I’ve known her since she was in kindergarten. I told her mother I’d miss the party. I’d be at the cemetery.<\/p>\n

Right about then, Jon got into the conversation.<\/p>\n

“What? You want to spend the day at Colma with a bunch of tombstones when you could be at a wedding shower with a bunch of women? You like<\/em> wedding showers.”<\/p>\n

Jon’s right — sometimes Jon is right — I do like wedding showers. There are gifts to be opened, sweets to be sampled, conversations to be had.<\/p>\n

Advice From a Dead Husband<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Jon is gone. Our life together is in the past. But there’s a wedding in the future.<\/p>\n

And so, it seems, there will be a future.<\/p>\n

Says Jon.<\/p>\n

Some wedding stories: “Wedding Dress Shopping — When Your Daughter Lets You Tag Along.”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Also, “A Marriage Proposal — The Man Said, Yes.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"advice<\/a>
Jon is buried here, amid the Newhall tombstones at Cypress Lawn<\/a>, Colma. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"wedding-shower-gifts<\/a><\/p>\n

How to mark the anniversary of Jon’s death? A visit to the cemetery seemed in order. Then along came some advice from my dead husband.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2552,2553,103,2480,187,34,82,2554,2419],"class_list":["post-34875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-widowed","tag-advice-from-a-dead-husband","tag-advice-from-beyond-the-grave","tag-aging","tag-cypress-lawn","tag-death","tag-dont-miss","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-wedding-shower","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34875","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=34875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49376,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34875\/revisions\/49376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}