Lately, I’ve been wearing my dead husband’s clothes.
While many new widows feel compelled to get rid of those poignant reminders immediately, I find them comforting and will probably keep them around for a while. Especially since I look semi-cute in them. Who knew?
Jeff’s flannel shirts are soft and cozy and actually kind of flattering in a shlumpy way. With sweatpants, they make a dashing ensemble for the home office, where I do my Girl Boss thang – okay, so I’m a late middle-aged Girl Boss – and most everything else.
The fuzzy zip-up fleeces my daughter and I gave him every Christmas – until last year, when he gently informed us that he had enough fuzzy zip-up fleeces? They’re great for walking in winter weather!
The slim hemp scarf he kept in his sock drawer, and wore maybe once a year – only if the temperature dipped below freezing? It’s a wonderful shade of blue, like his eyes, and – again – ideal for walking on cold mornings. Most of my own scarves are too long and fancy for fitness pursuits.
And then, there are the fingerless gloves.
Jeff had these gloves long before I met him – they’re probably 40 years old – and I believe he made them himself. I mean, he didn’t actually knit the gloves – though he probably could have – but he cut out the fingertips. I remember him telling me he used to wear them when he worked construction in San Francisco, back in the ‘80s.
Jeff preferred saying he “restored Victorians” – and he did – but he was basically working construction while also trying to be a professional actor. Ultimately, neither acting nor construction would become a lasting career. But how many men do you know who got restore Painted Ladies and perform with the Berkeley Shakespeare Company and even star in a terrible independent film where he got to use a goofy Polish accent? This was all before he worked as a chef in a French restaurant, before he started his video production company, and long before he became a newspaper publisher.
My husband was a man of many interests and nary a qualm about pursuing any of them, albeit with varying degrees of success. He simply didn’t possess the “what if I can’t?” gene. It was his greatest gift.
I was thinking about all that while staring at Jeff’s fingerless gloves – on my own hands – as I drove to the bank one morning in late December, my steering wheel too cold to clutch.
These oatmeal-colored gloves are enormous and bulky and make my hands look tiny and delicate, which is how they always felt when Jeff held them. Jeff was not a large man, but he had big, strong hands that were rough and calloused from all the manly tasks – all the fixing and building – they’d performed over the decades. Also, from playing guitar, one of his many secret hobbies, and from mending clothes and sewing on buttons – something he actually enjoyed, and who was I to deny him the pleasure?
I miss those hands. I miss the feeling of safety and protection they gave me. When I wear Jeff’s gloves, I feel close to him; it’s almost like he’s still keeping me safe, still protecting me.
But it occurred to me, while driving to the bank on that frigid morning, that the most important thing about Jeff’s gloves are those holes he cut in the fingertips. Those holes allow me to do things, and I have lots of things to do.
I wear Jeff’s fingerless gloves when I’m out walking on cold mornings. They keep my hands warm, but they also allow me to use my phone – to scroll for music that soothes my soul, to search for podcasts that stimulate my brain, to answer when my daughter calls, which she does every morning on her way to work in Columbia.
(Bless her heart. I live for those calls.)
I wore Jeff’s gloves to an outdoor Christmas party in mid-December. They kept my hands toasty, but also allowed me to pick up appetizers and hold a glass of wine. Or two.
I recently wore Jeff’s gloves while raking leaves – one of his chores in the Before Times – and while jump-starting our old, unreliable car using our other old, unreliable car. (Why do I still have both cars? It comforts me to have a back-up!) I had no idea car batteries drain if you let them sit in the driveway un-driven for two months! Jeff knew everything about cars and undoubtedly knew that, but I never got the memo.
Have I mentioned I have a steep learning curve?
Last month, I promised to stop writing about widowhood in 2026. Well, there are twelve months in a year. It may take me a while.
I am trying very hard to work up a proper interest in important current events, and am at least – at last! – aware that there ARE important current events happening. As I enter my fifth month of widowhood, this awareness represents a big milestone; I’ve moved from oblivion through indifference to mild (and sometimes even keen) curiosity. I am starting to see beyond my own shroud of grief and immediate survival instinct, and that feels good.
As I was pondering how to finish this piece, my dear friend Debbi Covington – everybody’s favorite foodie – sent me her column. Most of you know that Debbi lost her husband Vince last year, about five months before I lost Jeff, and in this issue, she’s finally written about her loss . . . while still managing to share some great recipes! Debbi and I always say that while we’re not young women, we are young widows – we’re both still a little stunned to find ourselves in this position – and her friendship’s been an absolute Godsend to me along my grief journey.
Incidentally, Jeff is probably rolling his celestial eyes at the phrase “grief journey.” He hated the overuse – “abuse” he’d have called it – of the word “journey,” which he believed should be reserved for rare adventures like trekking through Middle Earth in search of the One Ring.
I guess I still like to push his buttons!
Jeff and I pushed each other’s buttons a lot, actually. But when others pushed our buttons – when the outside world dared pounce on either of us – we had each other’s backs. Always. I must learn, now, to have my own back. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
And four months in, at least once a day, without warning – maybe I’m doing some mundane task, like standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes – I’m overwhelmed, once more, by the enormity of what’s happened, by the swiftness and randomness with which my husband, who so loved life – who approached it with such zest and good cheer and courage – had his taken from him.
And when that feeling comes out of nowhere, provoking guttural sobs and threatening to bring me to my knees, I know it’s time to put on Jeff’s fingerless gloves.
