She is an attractive woman, tall, slim, with short blond hair and clear green eyes.
Now she has time to lie in the sun. Her children are grown, married or planning to marry, and working. They don`t need her as Mom, just as a dependable, grownup friend.
She wishes the man with whom she spent most of her adult life could feel the Florida warmth, too. But a heart attack killed her husband two years ago. She sold their home and moved South to be near relatives.
At home, her sudden singlehood had become a social liability. Most of her couple friends, after a period of mournful support, vanished. Invitations slowed, then stopped.
She was single, saddled with the stigma of widowhood. With the stigma was the stereotype: A widow is needy, helpless, wild-eyed to find another man.
She is 50 and youthful. She married at 22, transferring from her parents` loving home to another. She had a good marriage. The two were friends and equals.
She never experienced the singles scene that was the post-college norm for her children. She is learning for the first time about the games men and women play.
After two years she is finished with wearing widowhood on her sleeve. But some seem to see her only as a woman who has lost her husband.
Like the date who told her that she needed a man. She considered the statement a slap, given her newly found pride in her independence.
She has met women who wrap their widowhood around themselves for protection. Her mother hid herself in an emotional closet until her second husband dragged her out. Some widows slide back into the family arms for support and stay there.
She doesn`t want to hide. She alternately savors being on her own and agonizes over the loneliness it brings.
She wants a steady date, not a husband. She had a good marriage, but she doesn`t want to go through widowhood twice.
She has weathered feelings that life isn`t worth living and that she can`t go on. Now she is learning that she can go on, on her own.
