Dialogue: Men pass away widows play

By DON DONOVAN

I was sitting sketching in a churchyard in Waikouaiti a few weeks ago when the inscription on a lichened tombstone took my eye.

It recorded the deaths of John Samuel Robbins and his wife, Isabella Jane. He died aged 74 in 1917, she in 1937 aged 92.

Imagine that, I thought, a widow for 20 years. It made me realise that I, now in the year when I shall complete my biblical allotment of three-score-and-ten, am quietly enjoying the friendship of a growing number of widows.

(At this juncture I must hasten to assure you that despite the odd difference of opinion that might cause me to write reconciliatory notes to her, Mrs Donovan and I enjoy an idyllic - if lengthy - marriage and I have no need to seek the amours of "loose" widows.)

No, the increase in that sector of my social repertoire is largely brought about by the passing of my friends, their husbands. It seems unfair that something in our genes prompts men to drop off the planet in significantly greater numbers than women after retirement age.

It's a sobering fact that anybody aged 80 is twice as likely to be female than male and that those men who hit 90-plus will be outnumbered three-to-one.

Perhaps the statistical inevitability of widowhood readies wives generally to handle their survival with confidence and fulfilment. I can think of no woman of my present acquaintance who has failed to come to terms with her life thereafter.

Without exception they're all extremely good at it. And, unlike most of the very few widowers I know, they appear to have little need of consorts or replacement spouses.

It's as if, having overcome the days surrounding his departure, they are able gently to shuffle affairs into order, splash out on new curtains, carpets, cushions and throws and simply - adjust.

Having attended late lamenteds' funerals, I have always felt the need to drop the newly bereaved a letter of sympathy, not only because of a genuine urge to record my feelings about an old friend but also somehow to let the widow know that just because he's sloped off to pastures new doesn't mean that she will be forgotten.

And from time to time thereafter I'll pick up the phone to find out how she's progressing.

Astonishingly, in a short space of time her adjustment has invariably been made. The missing of him is rarely a pining for him; the solitariness is seldom loneliness. To be sure he is remembered with affection, but life goes on.

I've rung around the widows over the past few weeks. Every one of them was busy, as all get out.

One had just come home from the lakes where she's kept the bach going because church and political committees demanded her presence.

Another, over 80, whose husband died within weeks of retiring at 65, had hurried home too, from the Canary Islands, her birthplace. Her return was spurred by the need to see children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

And down south, there is a much younger survivor, about 60, who, had been a devoted subject to her husband, spending her life doing what he wanted to do, leaving it all to him - the accounts, holiday decisions, what films to see, books to read.

She had been catapulted into widowhood and was generally expected to be helpless. Right now, however, she is planning a solo trip to Sicily which, she hopes, will be financed by the sale of all his stuff - rare books, artworks, memorabilia - that she stacked in the garage while she rearranged the house to suit her.

Which reminds me of another splendid widow. I remember seeing her over 50 years ago - 1952 - as she passed me in her coach. I, a 19-year-old senior aircraftman in the Royal Air Force, was one of hundreds who lined the route of King George VI's funeral procession as it made its way from Paddington to Westminster.

The king had died at Sandringham and his body was on its laborious way to Windsor. It was an Arctic day. We had stood in a west London street since 7am.

As the cortege approached we took the order "rest on your arms reversed" and slowly rotated our rifles from the present arms until their muzzles rested upon our toecaps, our hands laid on the butts, our heads respectfully bowed.

I had, during the manoeuvre, pushed my cap peak up, so that I could see the procession pass.

I saw the bands sway along; a drummer who'd fainted was dragged along by his mates without their breaking step.

I watched the slow-marching royal dukes, so much smaller than one expected. Then came the gun carriage with its flag-draped coffin drawn by matelots straining against brilliant white warps, and then the black carriages; the new queen, the princesses, the new Queen Mother.

She had been married 29 years. Now, veiled in black, her face was pale and serene.

She was to outlive her husband by half a century. Fifty years a widow. She puts Isabella Jane, of Waikouaiti, in the shade. Surely she must have been the greatest widow who ever lived?

* Don Donovan is an Auckland writer.