Home Alone, at Christmas : Lifeline Provides a Safe Emotional Haven for Those Who’ve Lost Their Spouses

This will be her second Christmas without Wally, and many of those who are sending holiday greetings to Mary Anne Wookey are probably assuming that, by now, she’s ready to reclaim the joy of the season.

She’s not. She hasn’t even cleaned out his closet yet. And the tears still come quickly whenever she talks about Wally, who died of cancer 14 months ago at age 74--just four days before their 38th anniversary.

“It seems more like 10 minutes,” said the 57-year-old South County resident, reaching in her purse for a tissue.

Mary Anne used to love Christmas shopping. Now--with four children, their spouses and four grandchildren to buy for--she finds the task overwhelming. And depressing.

“It’s lonesome. Wally loved to shop with me. I’m making myself do it now, and it’s no fun doing it alone. I have trouble deciding what to get, and I keep taking things back,” she said, admitting that it’s been difficult for her to be decisive about anything since her husband died.

Her friend, Belle Dechter, nodded sympathetically.

“People are too afraid; they don’t want to get friendly,” said Belle, whose husband died in August. “They don’t realize how much easier it would be for you if they said two words to you. They don’t know how much you need it.”

The members of Lifelines, a support group for widows and widowers, understand that need all too well. Both Belle and Mary Anne attend the group’s weekly meetings in Laguna Hills regularly, because it’s a place where they feel free to grieve openly, even at a time of year when the barrage of holiday cheer makes them feel they should somehow put a lid on their sorrow.

During a recent session led by Marjery Miller, a Laguna Beach marriage, family and child counselor, the group participants--nine widows and one silent widower on this day--talked about the difficulties they face over the holidays. Most preferred to remain anonymous.

One 81-year-old woman said she has abandoned all her holiday rituals, though it’s been six years since her husband died.

“I look at Christmas as just another day. That way I can get through it,” said Dorothy, who will go out to dinner with a friend on Christmas Day. “I don’t want to be with family because you’re really alone then.”

It’s been 11 years since Clara lost her husband, and, she admitted, “Holidays are still tough.”

Still, she prefers to spend them with family and, like most others in the support group, draws comfort from traditions that bring back warm memories.

Belle, who is 76, found it difficult to light Hanukkah candles early this month without her husband, Jack, who died three months after they discovered he had cancer. But it gave her a chance to remember how he had involved their Jewish neighbors in the blessings last year when he lit their menorah in the social hall of their South County retirement community.

This year, she went down to the social hall by herself and quietly lit the candles.

“There was a big vacancy,” said Belle, proud that she managed to do it on her own. That gave her neighbors a chance to offer what Belle, whose children are not nearby, needed most--hugs and kind words that remind her she is not alone.

Mary Anne said it was a relief to spend the first Christmas after Wally’s death with her children, because they were not uncomfortable with her tears. In fact, when they sat down to dinner--leaving Wally’s usual chair empty--and joined hands to say grace, they all broke down and cried.

What helped most, Mary Anne said, was not having to hide her pain, as she tries to do when people casually ask, “How are you?” and she reminds herself that they’re probably not prepared for the grief that still comes pouring out with the slightest encouragement.

Miller, the counselor, who was widowed in 1958 at age 45 and has been leading Lifelines for 10 years, urged the support group participants not to withdraw from others, but to “acknowledge that things are changed and structure activities to keep busy and divert painful thoughts at least part of the time.”

She added: “Plan activities with single friends. Be your charming self. You are still you, even though you have lost a partner. The feeling of sadness makes us more aware of all our feelings, so happy events can bring a heightened joy and the realization that now is all we have.

“We choose whether we will accept our situation and meet the challenges and grow, or reject the good things in life that are still available to us and suffer as a martyr.”

When Miller was newly widowed, she found comfort in reaching out to others at Christmas. One year she organized a potluck dinner for a large gathering of friends who had no relatives nearby, and she invited some Marines who couldn’t go home for the holidays to join them. This was her way of following the advice she gives others: “Continue building good memories that you can rerun when you are alone.”

Some support group members who spend Christmas with their families said their offspring have continued to come to their house for the holiday meal, but the advance preparation that was once a labor of love can be an enormous burden in the midst of grief.

“It takes double the effort because you’re fighting so much emotional distress,” Miller noted.

Betty, whose husband died six years ago, said it would have been much easier if one of her children had invited her over that first Christmas when her grief was so fresh.

“My family came and I tried to have everything the way we always did it, and it was very difficult,” she recalled. “I couldn’t get organized, even though my husband had been gone six months. It was nerve-racking. It would have been better if I hadn’t had to do all the preparation.”

It also would have helped, she added, if friends had stayed closer. “You’re perceived as a couple for so long. Then the husband or wife dies and you’re looked upon as an extra, a fifth wheel.”

That sometimes happens, Miller cautioned, because those who are grieving have “made a career of being widowed.”

The therapist recalled: “I told one woman who went to a church potluck dinner and announced that she’d just been widowed, ‘You can get away with that for six weeks, but then you’d better stop because people don’t want to hear it and they’ll steer away from you.’ ”

“It’s not right to burden other people,” said Helen, whose husband died nine years ago, on Christmas Eve. “Most of us approaching the holidays try to psych ourselves up for it so that when we arrive (at a gathering), we have a good attitude. I’m sure people appreciate that.”

She said it’s important to remember that others are grieving, too. “You get very self-centered. My husband’s death was such a shock that I didn’t give enough thought to the grief of my grandchildren and children. You have to think of others.”

Still, everyone needs a place where they can freely express their own grief. Miller recommends support groups. (For information on Lifelines, call (714) 494-2025.)

“In a grief group, you can express your pain and it will be understood and tolerated because everyone is hurting,” she explained. “Tears are allowed in a group. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been widowed.”

At the recent support group meeting, Miller also suggested that those who are grieving take time to nurture themselves over the holidays.

“I sometimes buy myself special things I’ve felt were not necessary or were too extravagant,” she said.

Belle proudly announced that she recently treated herself to a $98 sweater. She passed it by at first and then mentioned it to her stepson, who told her, “Pamper yourself.”

It wasn’t easy, but she said buying the sweater gave her a lift. “It feels really good to wear it,” she said.

It also brought her relief to sit and chat one recent afternoon with Mary Anne, who came to Belle’s apartment to talk with a reporter. They ended up offering each other encouragement and support, then going out to dinner together after the interview so they wouldn’t have to face the meal alone.

At one point, Mary Anne, who was 18 when she married Wally, told Belle: “He was my entire life.”

Wally had “amazing willpower,” she said, and when he told her he was going to beat cancer, she believed him.

Belle asked Mary Anne if she ever sleeps on Wally’s side of the bed.

“No,” she said.

“Try it,” Belle advised. “It’s better.”

Later, Belle urged Mary Anne to clean out Wally’s closet, and Mary Anne encouraged Belle to bring music back into her life.

“I used to sing all the time because I was a happy person,” Belle said. “I haven’t sung since Jack died.”

She hasn’t gone to the “happy hours” at her retirement community that she used to attend with Jack, either, although friends keep inviting her. She intends to go one day soon.

But moments of strength when she can say “it’s getting better every day” still easily give way to pain. And to tears, which flowed when she said to Mary Anne: “You know, you can be anywhere with people, but damn it, when you come home, there’s no one there. And you know what? They’re not coming back.”