I've been reading an absolutely lovely book by a female Christian writer widowed after 46 years. She talks of the great love she and her husband shared. I too have spoken of the depth of love John and I had, how good (and normal) our marriage was.
She mentions many of the emotions and feelings I myself have experienced. But one thing is noticeably missing. It is missing in most dialogues about widowhood. Perhaps because for many of us it is such a powerfully intimate subject, and for some even taboo.
There comes a point in grief when the body awakens, when physical desire is present. Yet the one I desire is not there and never will be again. My marriage was a normal relationship with all the components of a healthy intimacy. Now that is lost, too.
For weeks I've grieved my husband's loss. I miss him in so many ways. The company alone is worth missing, but this particular day what I've missed is the intimate side of our relationship.
The way he looked at me. His sudden, "You goodlooking woman!" as I walked through the room. The feel of his weight on the other side of the bed. The warmth and comfort of his embrace when he held me against his broad chest and wrapped his powerful arms around me. The way he'd kiss me at night before we said our prayers. A kiss that sparked real warmth in my body. Sometimes, when I'd gasp after a particularly long kiss, he'd smile and say, "Gotta keep the fire stoked..." And the look he'd give me, as he said that, blue eyes full of light, and warmth and desire.
Our marriage was no more or less passionate than any other. We had a normal healthy marriage. And this morning I awoke from a dream that left me weeping and yearning. A dream of us as we were just a few weeks ago. I wept because that intimacy is lost. If I say that part of my life is over, I do not mean it in any dramatic sort of way, but in a purely emotional way.
But desire...well it's still there. Intimacy died with John, but desire lingers on, as I myself do. No one talks about that.
I sometimes thought what life might be like if John went before me. John and I talked about it often enough over the past 10 years, ever since I went into the hospital with pulmonary embolisms. We knew that the likelihood one of us was going to end up alone was fairly high. So yes, we thought about it. We talked about it.
We talked about possible future relationships, too, in a loose sort of way. John, funnily enough, had strong opinions about things like that. He felt that at his age, he didn't want to date a woman his own age. Too many of them had already closed up shop, so to speak, didn't seem to have the spark he found so necessary in his partner. And he had no desire for a younger woman, "Because what would we talk about?"
For John, intimacy always began with conversation. But we both knew that he would suffer if he was alone. He needed company, an audience, social interaction, far more than I myself have ever felt the need of it, though I've often felt lonely.
For myself, my reasons were bound up in my own emotional tangles that I worked through far too often. Tangles that John was familiar with, and patient about my untangling. I couldn't imagine going through them with someone who is a stranger to me. I found the whole idea of being intimate with anyone who didn't know me as he did, emotionally and spiritually, was prone to make me feel wary and weary. I said repeatedly that I never wanted to marry again after him. It wasn't because we'd had such a difficult time, but it was in part because our marriage was so good, so completely a marriage in every sense of the word and the idea of re-creating that with anyone else seems such an impossibility to me.
But I never really thought about the physical side of things. And here I am. The one with whom I shared the ultimate intimacy is gone yet the desire for his touch is very much there.
I've not read anywhere that I'd literally awaken one morning with desire, and it would create a spate of grief for another part of my marital life even for my identity as a woman. Something else to lay aside and simply get on without. I wish someone had just come right out and spoken of it, honestly. A little warning of some sort would have been helpful. Perhaps then I wouldn't have had such a shock. But life is such that if you're relying on a Christian counselor or author, more than likely they'll avoid talk of intimacy and desire entirely. And if you're older, too, I think it's assumed that part of your life has already gone long ago, though I'll lay odds that for many of us it hasn't.
I have no solutions to tell anyone how to handle it. But I'd like to at least make other women aware that after your lover dies, desire will still exist. You will miss that component of your relationship. You're experiencing desire because it's the way a healthy, living, normal body acts. You will grieve the loss of intimacy as you have already grieved and will grieve over other things. You will miss that part of your womanly nature. That too is a normal healthy response.
And in the end, you shall go on.
