{"id":35369,"date":"2022-03-19T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=35369"},"modified":"2026-06-06T09:40:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:40:30","slug":"widowed-i-celebrated-his-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/widowed-i-celebrated-his-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed, I Celebrated His Birthday With Cupcakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"widowed<\/a>
Widowed, I celebrated his birthday with two cupcakes, one for him and one for me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jon’s birthday was yesterday, his 81st. He wasn’t there, of course. So, widowed, I celebrated his birthday without him.<\/p>\n

The occasion called for cake — chocolate, in Jon’s case.<\/p>\n

I bought two mini cupcakes at the neighborhood bakery, one for him and one for me. Jon might be gone, but there are still two of us. Right?<\/p>\n

Time is passing: what didn’t happen to Jon will happen to me in a few months. My 81st birthday will come. And then it will go.<\/p>\n

Time has a way of doing that, of hustling us along.<\/p>\n

Right now, it’s taking me farther and farther from Jon.<\/p>\n

It’s also pressing me toward a future. One I might like, once I get there.<\/p>\n

Read about a socially distanced birthday at “It’s My Birthday and I’m Really Old.”<\/a>\u00a0 Cake is great, but so is beef. More about that at\u00a0 “Confessions of a Carnivore.”<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Want to think hard about time? Try this web page: “Does Time Pass?”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"widowed<\/a>
Jon wasn’t there to eat his cupcake. I did it for him. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"widowed<\/a><\/p>\n

Widowed, I celebrated his birthday without him — with two birthday cupcakes, one for him and one for me. Because there were still two of us.\u00a0\u00a0Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[103,654,2576,34,191,29,2419],"class_list":["post-35369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","category-widowed","tag-aging","tag-birthday","tag-cupcakes","tag-dont-miss","tag-grief","tag-jon","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35369","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=35369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49341,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35369\/revisions\/49341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}