newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SALLY FRIEDMAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

LIFESOUNDS

On many of these dead-of-winter nights around dusk, I think of my neighbor, a new widow. I think of how this twilight hour must feel for her.

Even though I don't know S. well, I do know that she had a long and happy marriage, and that it must be so tough for her to face the night alone.

I try to imagine how she deals with being alone in a house that she had shared for so long with a good and dear husband.

Such a shocking, aching change. Such a day-by-day challenge that must grow more, not less daunting, as the anesthesia of shock wears off and reality sets in.

Like so many women of my generation, I went from my father's house to the one I established with my husband without any stops along the way. No period of flying solo. None of that independence that we women are supposed to experience if we're to live strong.

I'm lately obsessed with the notion of strength and independence. My generation of women lived by a very dangerous anthem: Marry, and happily ever after will take care of itself.

Nobody warned us that those knights in shining armor we married at the ripe old age of 21 or 22 might someday find other fair maidens, often younger and firmer than we had become. Or that bad things happen to good people.

We were the Doris Day/Rock Hudson gals and guys who earnestly believed that once we settled into our cottages with picket fences – once we produced chubby, happy babies – we were guaranteed those Hollywood endings.

And being alone? Nobody really mentioned that.

I think I really did miss a serious and important experience that my own daughters have had. And I'm glad for them because surely, Jill, Amy and Nancy grew from those flings with solitude.

I've never known what it is to dig deep into myself for company. I've had no experience in true aloneness, the kind that lasts more than a day or a weekend.

I yearn, sometimes, to know the solitary life, if only to practice self-sufficiency of the spirit, and to cultivate my own courage.

I watch as more and more of my friends find themselves single again by chance or choice. And I notice that some, particularly those who have shed difficult marriages or alliances, revel in it, once the strangeness has worn off.

What's it like? I'm left to wonder that because it's foreign to me.

After so many years of marriage, I'm totally attuned to the sound of the garage door opening, and the sight of a man who may scan the headlines before he scans me, and will ask "What's for dinner?" then frown if it's meat loaf....

But that's my "normal." And I cherish it. Yes, even after four-plus decades.

Alone still seems exotic.

Only you set the thermostat – and the agenda.

Only you decide everything from how late is too late for dinner to how low or high to hang the pictures. No compromise. No hassles about whose turn it is to get the car inspected.

What odd notions for the long-married.

How strange to contemplate a life with no one to hand you the towel, fasten the necklace or button that last pesky button.

How challenging it must be to cope with the odd anarchy of life alone without tumbling into self-pity or rigidity.

I'm pretty certain that S. would happily trade in the growth that often comes from tough times for having things just they way they used to be. The aloneness of a new widow defies understanding and cuts deeper than nearly any human experience.

I can imagine that S., who loved her husband dearly, may never get entirely used to it. But perhaps one day – who knows when – she'll come to an acceptance of the notion that one can be company. Even good company. Even at dusk.

At some time in our lives, it's a lesson we all may have to learn.

Sally Friedman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Moorestown, and longtime contributor to local, regional and national publications. The mother of three has seven grandchildren and is the wife of retired New Jersey Superior Court judge Victor Friedman. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .