I was half watching a movie on TV the other evening and the male lead had to go away, on a ferry boat of all things, apparently forever. Shortly after that scene the female lead said something like, “Saying I miss him would be too easy. Everything has simply changed.”

I know that feeling.

I was married to my childhood sweetheart for nearly forty years before she passed away over a year ago. She was 59 and had been diagnosed with colon cancer. She had two very difficult surgeries and then she was gone. And exactly everything changed.

My adult daughter pushed me to participate in a “grief” group that Hospice House was offering in Merrimack. I was sure the last thing I wanted to do was talk about this with strangers. But I went and, at first, reluctantly participated. By the end of six weeks I was crying along with everyone else and practicing meditation again after a lapse of many years. I was glad I had done it but unsure what it all meant.

I continued projects on our old house that Martha and I had planned. I vacuumed and cleaned and washed and cooked. I found it odd that a now wild and crazy bachelor would keep his house neat as a pin!

I helped my daughter and her family move away for a better job and, hopefully, a better life. I still travel the long distance to be with them at holidays and important events. I thought I should probably retire and devote more time to my granddaughters.

Then it occurred to me that I should be on the lookout for eligible ladies. I wasn’t sure what I intended to do with one if I found one but it seemed like the thing to do. I posted myself in the frozen food section of the supermarket and when a likely candidate came along I would open the freezer door in front of me, grab the box I’d picked out in advance and turn to the lady to ask if “this is enough for one”.

That isn’t exactly true. Well, it isn’t true at all but I found that friends got a kick out of my telling them that.

What do I know a year and a half later? Only for sure that everything has changed and that I have to cope, not by designing schemes for “picking up chicks’ (and never carrying them out!), not by finishing endless projects, not by waiting on granddaughters like a butler but rather by authentically finishing my life as I see fit.

This link is to a number of books on grief. I’ve never actually read one but then I’m probably not a good role model.