Don’t judge: ‘Hearts can expand’ after a spouse’s death
Leslie Gray Streeter
“If you really loved your husband, you wouldn’t be dating this soon.”
When you make a living writing occasionally about the ridiculous, sublime and even painful parts of your personal life, you open yourself up to the opinions of strangers about that personal life. Some of those opinions are supportive, some dissenting but wellmeaning. And others, like the above response to a column I wrote earlier this year about returning to dating a year and a half after losing my husband, are mean-spirited and make me think of words of which my grandmother would not approve.
I try not to worry about those opinions, which are thankfully few and far between, and instead focus on those who mean well, because life is too short to let people you wouldn’t have dinner with rent space in your head. But then something infuriating happens, like actor and widower Patton Oswalt getting dragged online for daring to find happiness again faster than some internet folks deem appropriate.
And then BOOM! Out come those words again. Sorry
Grandma!
As an American, you have every right to express your opinion about the lives of strangers, particularly if those strangers seem to be inviting you into their lives by telling you about them. But, you know … what is wrong with you to think you always have to?
Last week Oswalt, of “King of Queens,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Mystery Science Theater
3000” fame, announced that he was engaged to actress Meredith Salenger, 15 months after the unexpected death of wife Michelle McNamara. Most fans, who had followed Oswalt’s raw and moving words about missing his soulmate and mother of their daughter, reacted like human beings, which is to say they either said “Good for you!” or nothing at all. Others acted like 12-yearold mean girls, opining that it was too soon for him to be dating and questioning the sincerity of his grief and his very love for his wife.
The more I read the cruel words of people who really ought to get hobbies, the angrier I got. But I decided to sit on my anger and not write a profane knee-jerk response.
Fortunately, the brilliant widowed blogger
Erica Roman jumped right in. And I wish I could high five her and buy her many, many cups of coffee. Titled “A Widow’s Rage Defense Of Patton Oswalt’s Engagement,” Roman’s post said all of the things that I, Patton Oswalt and I’m sure others wanted to say to all the concerned trolls that, as she wrote, “aren’t actually concerned about the heart of the person who has found the strength and courage to love once more. You’re worried about your own offended sensibilities rooted in old Victorian traditions. Stop pretending you are actually concerned about their ‘healing.’”
The part that most resonated with me, someone who had not only a life but a public presence before my widowhood, was Roman’s view of people who are invested in the idea of Oswalt as a brave widower, wishing he would stay in that warm and fuzzy box they’ve built around him, rather than reveal himself as a real person who needs and deserves love.
She asks “how long should a widow sit in isolation before YOU are comfortable enough to release them from their solitary confinement? … I said that I was happy to see Patton Oswalt’s heart had expanded. I used that word intentionally. I say expanded because that’s what widowed hearts do. They expand. One love isn’t moved out to make room for someone new.”
Bravo! Oswalt himself thanked Roman on Facebook, and later on Twitter, calling her column “so amazing. And SO well-written.” He said that while he’d “decided to ignore” the “bitter grub worms (who) weigh in,” he admitted that “yeah, I felt this rage. And Erica articulated it better than I could have ever hoped.”
Grieving is a raw, nasty experience, and choosing to share that grief as you are flailing through it blindly can be incredibly cathartic but, again, be taken as an invitation to tell you what you’re doing wrong with your life. When Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who recently released the book “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy” began dating ten months after the death of her husband, someone on Facebook called her a “garbage whore.”
Rather than use her obviously strong internet connections to hunt that troll down, Sandberg wrote a book, which, she told The Guardian, hopefully “helps people stop judging people who date [after the loss of a partner], particularly women, because women get judged much more harshly. Men date sooner, men date more, and women get judged more. And, you know, obviously that’s super unfair. I think I’m helping people remember that dating, for those who want to do it, is part of moving forward, and it is option B. If I could I would only date (late husband) Dave. I made that choice. I just had that taken away from me.”
Exactly. The 29th of this month marks the two-year anniversary of that horrible morning when I lost Scott, and the vulnerable, desperate words I wrote in the months that immediately followed were the honest cry of a broken heart. I was not lying when I wrote them. And two years later, even as I continue dating, I know that I am not looking for a replacement for my husband because there is no replacement for him. The love I have for him will never go away. But my broken heart is healing and, as Roman said, has expanded to, one day, be big enough to hold more love.
I cannot fathom why anyone, stranger or friend, would not wish happiness for someone else, even if they thought it was too soon. I cannot imagine why you would have the option of choosing to congratulate someone or curse them, and choose the latter. Patton Oswalt is a celebrity. But he does not owe you, internet people who judge, his happiness, or that of his daughter. And you don’t owe him your congratulations, obviously.
You can just not say anything at all.