Guest column

Life goes on after you lose a spouse

There are a lot of "firsts" after one has lost a spouse: the first time you come home to an empty house, the first time you go to a movie alone, the first birthday you celebrate without him, the first time you have people over, the first Thanksgiving. I've experienced all of these and will have many more, I'm sure, over the course of this first year without my husband.

I had a new "first" recently and this one kind of took me by surprise. It was a simple application, calling for basic information -- name, address, telephone number, marital status. I almost checked "married," the box I've marked for the last 45 years. Suddenly I'm "widowed." I've avoided calling myself a widow, but this little box brought it home to me very quickly. That's what I am. Not single, not married, not divorced . . . I am a widow.

We've all heard the advice to the newly widowed of not making any big decisions for the first year, or maybe it's just six months, I don't know. In my husband's letter to me that I read after his death, he also suggested I wait for things to calm down to make any big changes in my life. And I have followed his advice.

I did, however, make one decision a couple of months ago -- not a very big one, I thought -- and that was the matter of Eric's chair. I guess most men have "their chair." Eric's was a "stressless" leather recliner, one of those sleek Scandinavian leather chairs with a matching footstool. Any time my back was acting up, he'd say, "Sit in my chair. It'll help." Well, it didn't. As comfortable as he was in his "stressless" chair, that's how uncomfortable I was. But it didn't matter . . . it was "his" chair and he loved it.

Over the months that he's been gone, I've tried to sit in the chair. I thought it might make me feel warm and cozy, maybe like his arms were still around me. But all I felt was discomfort in my lower back. I've also noticed that no one sits in that chair. When people come over and I invite them to "have a seat," no one ever chooses to sit there. So I decided to sell it. End of subject? I thought so, but . . . no.

I mentioned to my daughters that I was going to sell the chair and I got the distinct impression they were not comfortable with my decision. I sometimes forget that they are grieving for their father right along with me, but their momentary silence at the other end of the phone brought it home to me. But it didn't change my mind. My eldest daughter seemed to have the hardest time accepting that "Dad's chair" wouldn't be in the usual corner next time she visited; my youngest daughter suggested to her big sister that "maybe it's hard for Mom to come home every day and see Dad's chair there." My middle daughter (probably the closest to me in temperament) said, "Whatever you want to do is what you should do."

So the chair was sold and my remaining furniture in the living room was simply rearranged. The girls expressed some surprise that I wasn't buying another chair to place in that corner (they know me well!). But I elected for more open space. The only thing I did buy was a wind chime to hang in the corner. It's a Frank Lloyd Wright design called Midway Gardens, the Midway being part of the University of Chicago in the South Side neighborhood where my husband grew up. Somehow it seemed so right, and it is -- particularly when the gulf breezes blow and the chimes softly tinkle.

It's a very peaceful scene . . . different from before, but then life is different from what it was before. There will be other "firsts," I know, but the old cliche (that nobody says to you but everybody thinks) is correct: Life goes on.

-- Barbara Moch is on the Times staff.

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