After he died, the house became painfully quiet, but the silence was not the strangest part of widowhood for me.
On my fourth morning, I found a strange shell near the surf and stood turning it over in my palm.
The strangest part was realizing I had spent decades answering everyone else’s needs before ever asking what I wanted.
So at sixty-eight, I booked a month by the ocean in South Carolina and told my children afterward, not before.
Jenny stared at me over dinner and said, “A month alone?”
I smiled. “Yes. That’s exactly why I’m going.”
On my fourth morning, I found a strange shell near the surf and stood turning it over in my palm.
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