Widowed: Marriage Mistakes — If I Could Have a Do-Over, Would I?

The trouble with someone being dead is — you can’t tell them you love them. Not anymore.

Which gets you to wondering, did they know for sure that you loved them while they were still alive? Did you make yourself clear?

That’s why, three years after Jon’s death, certain things, little things, still bring on the tears. Small things that I did not do for Jon. That I could have done. That I’d do differently, if only he could be here again and I could hear the creaking of his old office chair as he works away on his thriller novel in his upstairs office. Or hear the clumping of his shoes on the stairs as he comes down to make dinner.

When I refer to little things, I mean little. It’s their smallness, their inconsequence that unsettles me all these months later.

Little Kindnesses Left Undone

For example, it was my job to do the laundry and sort the clean clothes as they came out of the dryer. Jon liked his socks mated and rolled up together, which I told him was a dumb idea. Can’t you see, I said, when socks are rolled up like that, they take up way too much space in your sock drawer? Better to flatten them out and stack them.

Then I’d go ahead and arrange my husband’s socks in the laundry basket the way I wanted. If Jon didn’t like it, he could mate his own darned socks.

Widowed: My Marriage Mistakes

There were other moments of stinginess, of opting not to make those tender, often imperceptible gestures.

Jon did all the grocery shopping. He made dinner every day, reporting to the kitchen in the evening with only a glass of Cabernet and the TV news to keep him company.

I wasn’t there. I’d be downstairs in my office, writing, or off at the mall, doing the family shopping.

I made a point of showing up on time for dinner, however, at 7 p.m. sharp. If Jon was going to cook dinner, the least I could do was be on time. But it didn’t stop me from complaining about all the salt he put in the salad, or the fact he was serving artichokes again.

But on the nights that Jon asked me to help out by setting the table, I’d dally. I’d grumble. I sigh with resentment. Getting dinner was Jon’s job, for heaven’s sake. And that included setting the table.

I could have given Jon a gift on those evenings. I could have celebrated the meal he’d made by setting the table for him, cheerfully.

Same goes for the membership to the San Francisco Opera Jon gave me one birthday. It was a classic case of giving someone the gift that you’d like to be given. The membership entitled us to buy tickets to afternoon rehearsals, which we did once or twice. After that, I lost interest and tossed out the offers when they arrived in the mail.

And now, whenever a brochure from the opera arrives in the mail — I’m still on their mailing list — I am overwhelmed with sadness. Not because I am missing Jon, though there is that. But because I feel so sorry for Jon. He wanted something, and I didn’t bother to make it happen.

A Do-Over?

I sometimes think, if I could have a do-over, if I could bring Jon back by mating his socks and setting the dinner table, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

I’d also hand over the front section of the newspaper the minute he came down for breakfast. And on the nights we were going out together, I’d be ready to leave when Jon was ready. I’d have my earrings in my earlobes before he headed for the car, not three minutes later.

I would make all the little concessions I’d refused to make during our years together. I’d make them all if only they would bring Jon back.

But then, that wouldn’t be a marriage, would it?

More about marriage at, “Time to Crack Open That Hope Chest and Live a Little.”  Also at, “Stalking Superman.”