{"id":40661,"date":"2024-02-10T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T08:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=40661"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:40:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:40:51","slug":"widowed-were-older-and-kinder-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/widowed-were-older-and-kinder-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: We’re Older and Kinder Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Older and kinder: Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegr<\/a>e in the film “Maestro,” a biographic drama based on Leonard Bernstein’s marriage with Montealegre, now streaming on Netflix. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The woman behind the wheel was doing it all wrong. She was trying to parallel park her silver subcompact on a busy city street, and she couldn’t get it right. She pulled in, she pulled out. She backed up, she pulled forward. She paused.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the driver in the lane behind her chose not to wait quietly while she got herself parked. They rolled the car up behind her, and roared its engine.<\/p>\n

We don’t get a lot opportunities to show kindness in our daily days. But this was one of them, and it was wasted. Instead of giving the poor woman a few extra minutes to get parked, the driver chose to intimidate her.<\/p>\n

We Get Cranky<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Why do we do that? Why do we let ourselves get cranky and bully each other at moments like this? How is it that we overlook these small opportunities to be kind, to give an unearned gift, to alter the arc of the universe by a fraction?<\/p>\n

Heaven knows, I’ve done my share of honking and griping over the years. But lately I’ve found that there is something about widowhood, something about losing a dear one, something about living alongside death, that makes a person — well, me, anyway — turn to kindness as a salve for the chronic, low-grade pain of grief.<\/p>\n

In the past three months of living with head-spinning vertigo, I’ve taken maybe fifty Uber and Lyft rides around town. Each time, as I am delivered to my destination and I slip out of yet another stranger’s car, I find myself saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much for being there.”<\/p>\n

It’s My Id Talking<\/strong><\/h5>\n

And I mean it. I’m not trying to be nice. This is not my super ego talking. I am not being a virtuous goody-good. It is my totally irresponsible id talking, my reptilian brain. My gut.<\/p>\n

For reasons not at all rational, I find myself wishing to give something besides a tip to these hardworking drivers, people with names like Qiana, William, Angel and Zurab, people who have shown up for me day after day for three months running.<\/p>\n

Kindness. Screenwriters Bradley Cooper<\/a> and\u00a0Josh Singer<\/a> chose to put that word into the mouth of the dying Felicia Montealegre toward the end of their prizewinning film “Maestro,” a biographical drama exploring the marriage of composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia.<\/p>\n

We’re Older and Kinder Now<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I like Montealegre’s choice of words as she lay dying. I like the screenwriters’ decision to note them and give them their moment. “You know, all you need, all anyone needs, is to be sensitive to others,” a fading Montealegre says to her grieving daughter. “Kindness,” she says. “Kindness. Kindness.”<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s what happens to us as we get closer to death. We do what the wisdom traditions of the world have been exhorting us to do for millennia. When an opportunity to be kind presents itself, we notice.<\/p>\n

More on love and marriage at “Is Cabin Fever Setting In?”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “Office Romance in the #MeToo Era. Is It Worth the Risk?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"we're<\/a>
Josh Singer and Bradley Cooper, screenwriters for “Maestro,” chose to give Felicia Montealegre the parting words “kindness.” What made them choose those words for her? Are they older and kinder now?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"we're<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m older and kinder now, but not because I’m a virtuous goody-good. It’s my irresponsible id, my reptilian brain, that wants to be kind.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[2824,2825,2263,2826,2827],"class_list":["post-40661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-bullies","tag-felicia-montealegre","tag-kindness","tag-leonard-bernstein","tag-maestro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40661","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=40661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48843,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40661\/revisions\/48843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}