{"id":35615,"date":"2022-04-30T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T07:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=35615"},"modified":"2026-06-06T09:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:19:16","slug":"widowed-a-love-letter-from-jon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/widowed-a-love-letter-from-jon\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: A Love Letter From Jon Arrived This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"widowed-A-Love-Letter-from-jon\"<\/a>
Widowed: A love letter arrived from Jon — in the form of our house and the backyard landscape we worked so hard on. Still under construction, the yard is designed to be viewed from above. Photo by Barbara Newhal<\/em>l<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m widowed and I got a love letter from Jon, my husband, this week. It arrived in my psyche \u2013 unbidden \u2013 during a conversation with a friend.<\/p>\n

Some widows talk to their husbands every day. Some husbands talk back. I don\u2019t talk to Jon. Why? I\u2019m a skeptic for one thing. And so was he.<\/p>\n

But more to the point \u2013 conjuring Jon too vividly sends me to tears. Soon I\u2019m sobbing and spraying my glasses with tears, and whatever I was about to do in that moment doesn\u2019t get done.<\/p>\n

So, no, I don\u2019t talk to Jon, and he doesn\u2019t talk back. Not that I know of.<\/p>\n

But this week, out of the blue, I got a love letter from Jon. It arrived in spite of myself, in spite of Jon. It had to do with this house of ours.<\/p>\n

Glum Thoughts<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about our house and our backyard these past weeks, and my thoughts have been glum. What\u2019s the point, I think? What\u2019s the point of finishing the backyard project we started five years ago?<\/p>\n

Why not let it go to weedy grass like our neighbors? Forget the manzanita, the salvia, the Pacific irises. Let the wild grass grow. Whack it back every spring in time for fire season. Why not?<\/p>\n

Forty-four Action-Packed Years<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I got a lot done during my 44 years of marriage with Jon. My days were action packed. Get the living room rug cleaned. Shop for dish towels. Hold down a job. Find summer camps for the kids. Get my book published. Clean the grout from around the kitchen sink.<\/p>\n

For 44 years, I lived my life. I did what I wanted to do. That\u2019s a fact. But some part of me was aiming it all at Jon.<\/p>\n

Yes, I was trying to be helpful in this marriage. Yes, I wanted to hold up my end of things. But I was also leading a life I thought would entertain<\/em> my husband, keep him amused.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know this at the time. I didn\u2019t know how much I was counting on being seen by Jon. I didn\u2019t know how much I liked giving him something to see: me writing a book, me scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.<\/p>\n

\"widowed-will-a-douglas-iris-grow-in-my-yard\"<\/a>
Pacific coast irises grow naturally along the California coast. This one, a Douglas iris, was growing at Chimney Rock State Park. Will one of these lovelies feel at home in my new backyard? Photo by Barbara<\/em> Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And now he\u2019s gone. So, what\u2019s the point? Who am I entertaining these days with my antics, literary and domestic?<\/p>\n

What now is the point of finishing the backyard garden we\u2019d planned? The one designed to be gazed upon from above, from our brand-new deck a glass of wine in hand?<\/p>\n

Widowed: A Love Letter From Jon<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I was wondering all this when my friend, also a widow, described the house she\u2019d just bought. It\u2019s what she and her partner had long envisioned for themselves. Now the house is a reality, and it makes my friend happy. \u201cIt\u2019s a love letter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. Of course. Jon and I bought this house, with its steep backyard, together. We fixed it up together. It’s is not a sorry remnant of a former life. It\u2019s a love letter. It\u2019s a gift from Jon.<\/p>\n

And so, yes, there will be manzanita. There will be salvia. There will be native fern and coastal iris.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll look down on our garden from above, from our deck, as planned. And if I can bring myself to think of Jon, I\u2019ll thank him.<\/p>\n

More about the house remodel project that Jon and I undertook at “Too Many Walls and Not Enough Bathrooms at Our House.”<\/a>\u00a0 And here’s one about our backyard before we started fixing it up: “I’ve Got a Pile of Antique Bricks in My Backyard.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"widowed-A-Love-Letter-from-jon\"<\/a>
Our backyard staircase was built with antique San Francisco street paving bricks. It’s bordered with moss rock and stacks of broken concrete. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"widowed-a-love-letter-from-Jon-my-husband\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m widowed and a love letter from Jon, my husband, arrived this week — in the form of the house we bought and built together.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2589,34,2590,1188,29,2591,2592,2593],"class_list":["post-35615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-widowed","tag-backyard","tag-dont-miss","tag-douglas-iris","tag-house","tag-jon","tag-landscape-design","tag-love-letter","tag-pacific-iris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35615","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=35615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49316,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35615\/revisions\/49316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}