To the mother who lost her husband

His mug is still on the second shelf. You haven’t moved it, and you’ve stopped explaining to yourself why. His side of the bed stays made. Some mornings you put two slices of bread in the toaster before you remember.

When the kids call, it’s “Are you okay, Mom?” And you say “I’m fine, honey,” because they have their own grief and their own kids and their own jobs, and you’re still their mother. Even now you’re the one keeping everyone else steady. Then you hang up, and the house is very quiet, and nobody asks you that question in a way you could actually answer.

When you drive, you talk to him. You tell him what the plumber said. You ask him which way to turn, even though you know.

For much of the last century, the advice to grieving people was to “let go.” Get through it, put it behind you, move on. In 1996 three researchers, Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman, edited a book called Continuing Bonds that pushed back. They had listened to widows, parents and children who had lost someone, and they kept hearing the same thing: people don’t simply let go. They stay connected. They talk to the one they lost, keep their things, ask what they would say. For many people, the researchers wrote, that is a normal part of grief, not a sign that something is wrong.

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So keep talking to him in the car. Keep the mug on the shelf as long as you want. There’s no schedule for this, and you’re not behind.

And the next time one of them asks, “Are you okay, Mom?” you could try answering with one true sentence instead of “I’m fine.” “I miss your dad most in the mornings.” That’s all. They can handle a mother who misses their father. It may even help them miss him out loud too.

For years you were the one asking, “Are you okay?” It’s all right to be asked back, and to answer.

— Be A Good Mom

Source: Klass, D., Silverman, P. R. & Nickman, S. L. (Eds.) (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.