Shirley Reeser McNally - When Husbands Die

WHEN HUSBANDS DIE

WHEN HUSBANDS DIE

Women Share Their Stories

Shirley Reeser McNally

with

Barbara Harrison Mulhern

and

Mary Witt Wydman

2005 by Shirley Reeser McNally. All Rights Reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

McNally, Shirley Reeser, 1925

When husbands die : women share their stories / Shirley Reeser McNally with Barbara Harrison Mulhern and Mary Witt Wydman.

p.cm.

ISBN 0-86534-442-6 (softcover)

1. WidowsUnited StatesPsychology. 2. WidowsUnited StatesCase studies. 3. WidowhoodUnited States. 4. HusbandsDeathPsychological aspects. 5. Loss (Psychology)

I. Mulhern, Barbara Harrison. II. Wydman, Mary Witt. III. Title.

HQ1058.5.U5M35 2005

155.64433dc22

2004026789

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Contents

Acknowledgments

O ur deepest thanks go to the women of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, who have shared their stories for the purposes of this project, to the scholars who have assisted us, and to other friends who have offered their insight about what happens to women in todays society as they learn to survive and make new lives for themselves when their husbands die.

Shirley Reeser McNally, Class of 1947

Barbara Harrison Mulhern, Class of 1947

Mary Witt Wydman, Class of 1947

Introduction

W hen Husbands Die has evolved as a sharing of personal reactions, recollections and relationships by women who are living through the enormous life change they faced when, in an instant, through no action, choice or fault of their own, they became widows. It is offered in the hope that other widows will find within its pages survivors like themselves who can help them on their life journeys to the good places that are attainable.

It is also for families, to help them understand what is happening to the mother, sister, daughter they think they know so well. It is also for friends, to let them know how strong or weak, needy, isolated or emotionally exhausted their good old pals really are and will continue to be for weeks, months, and years to come.

And it is for people who are still married, to ask themto beg themto learn, to understand, to leave denial for a time and face the reality of their own deaths and what they can do, now, to help the one who will be left behind.

The stories told by the women who responded to the projects questionnaire are poignant, sad, disturbing and, in many ways, healing. Every story is personal. Each persons grief is personal; it is grief that will not be relegated to a studied, step-by-step process. Unless you have experienced the grief unique to this situation, you cannot explain what its like. Unless you have to live it, as several women said, you cannot understand it. There are some generalities, but grief work and recovery are open-ended.

We take our own steps. We stumble and then we go on, each in our own way. We can learn from others. The stories women are willing to share may well become vital to your own progress after the death of your husbandthrough your grief and mourning, through changing relationships with friends and family, through solutions of financial matters, to the necessary reinvention of yourself.

The women who shared in this project have become our friends, more than that, in the way of women, they have become our sisters. They may become yours. Their stories will bring solace and support for your own experiences and misgivings. If you do not see yourself in every response, thats because you are not there. Each situation has its own specifics; no two are any more alike than the storytellers themselves. There are similarities; there are common threads. You will find them. You also will find humor, strength, despair, encouragement, honesty and above all, hope. Use the stories to learn about yourself: about the person you are becoming, the work you must do. More than seventy-nine women are sharing their thoughts with you to help you move from one part of your life to another. They, too, have been suddenly singledmade singleand forced into an unwanted life change: to be wives no longer, to become widows when their husbands died. Each of them had to learn to live without her lover, her best friend, her partner, her companionand her marriage!

Shirley McNally, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Project

Begin at the Beginning

W omen whose husbands have died feel a kinship. They are proof, one for the other, that survival is possible. The women who share their stories here do so in hopes that they will be of help to women who are preparing for or experiencing the months and years of trauma that follow the tragic loss when husbands die. While the mutuality of this loss is not a particularly positive beginning for a friendship, it is an opportunity to share experiences and moments of empathy or sympathy, as well as moments of great strength that may be helpful and healing.

The basis for the friendship among the three of us who began this project, Barbara Harrison Mulhern, Mary Witt Wydman and Shirley Reeser McNally, is our four years at Smith College, a womens liberal arts institution in Massachusetts. Although we were in the same college class and knew each other, we were not close companions during those college years, nor did we maintain a relationship following graduation.

By June of 1989, when the story of this project begins, we had each outlived our husbands. Bob Wydman died in 1984, Art Mulhern died in 1986, Jerry McNally, my husband, died early in 1989. Old school friends and current strangers, Mary, Barbara and I were about to become deeply involved. Quite independently, each of us had developed concern for the many women who, like ourselves, will have to experience great loss and trauma when their husbands die and they must move to a solitary way of life after years of marriage. How we came together and what we want to share about our own experiences are part of the story.