{"id":36980,"date":"2022-11-19T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T08:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=36980"},"modified":"2026-06-06T07:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:06:11","slug":"widowed-i-get-to-have-it-my-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/widowed-i-get-to-have-it-my-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: I Get to Have It My Way Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Widowed<\/a>
This mid-century mahogany four-poster was big enough for my parents, and it’s big enough for me. Now that I’m widowed, I get to have it my way and I’ve moved the bed into my bedroom. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marriage is all about give and take. It’s a 50-50 proposition. It’s about compromise. That’s what they tell you. But Jon is gone now — gone enough to have forfeited his right to have a say in things. Which means — I’m widowed. I get to have it my way, 100 percent of the time.<\/p>\n

This have-it-my-way mood started soon after Jon died:<\/p>\n

Jon’s laptop. It’s mine now.<\/strong> Given all the paperwork in the days following Jon’s death, I saw that I needed — wanted — a second laptop to keep handy near the kitchen. So I moved Jon’s laptop from his upstairs office to the dining room table.<\/p>\n

This created a wrenching empty spot on Jon’s desk. But I needed that laptop. I took it.<\/p>\n

Jon’s half of our bedroom closet. It’s mine now, too.<\/strong> For years I eyed Jon’s half of our closet, coveting it for the crush of clothes I kept at my end of the closet.<\/p>\n

I once asked Jon if he’d like to move his wardrobe to the closet in our son’s old bedroom — spread out a bit, get comfortable. He said no, huffily asserting his right to his half of our closet. For years, I made do with my half.<\/p>\n

\"Widowed<\/a>
In one of our first compromises as a couple, Jon and I chose this very austere Spode Consul bone china. I thought it might grow on me. It didn’t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But then, within months of Jon’s death, I saw my chance to have it my way, closet-wise. I shed the obligatory tears over my husband’s dear belongings. Then I merrily dispatched his entire wardrobe — dress shirts, slacks, navy blue wedding suit — to Peter’s closet. And now I have my own private walk-in closet.<\/p>\n

Our king-sized bed — it’s too big for me.<\/strong> Christina and her husband Tim will be here for Thanksgiving week. They need Jon’s and my big, fat, king-sized marital bed — way more than I do.<\/p>\n

I’m a scant 62 inches tall, with a wing span of 57 inches. I fit just fine into the old four-poster full-sized bed in Christina’s bedroom that nicely accommodated my 20th-century parents — the both of them — for decades.<\/p>\n

It was time to make the switch.\u00a0And yet, and yet — Jon and I had shared this bed (till snoring did us part) for years — could I let go of it? And it was on this bed, after all, that Jon lay, downed by a stroke, waiting for that ambulance.<\/p>\n

I thought it over, and soon the sorrow of giving up our bed gave way to a the happy prospect of moving Christina and Tim from that cramped double bed into one big enough to hold two full-sized Millennials.<\/p>\n

I called the movers. The beds were switched.<\/p>\n

It felt good. It felt so good that now I’m seeing lots more stuff to say good-bye to. Things from the past — all of it getting in the way of the present:<\/p>\n