Great Widda Read: The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

When it comes to “grief reading,” I tend to lean towards the more funny (but real) stories, rather than self-help books.  They can be fiction or non-fiction...it doesn’t really matter to me.  I’m hooked as long as the story is readable and the character or writer is someone I can relate to.  The bottom line is...there are times when I get tired of reading about how I should be handling my grief and would rather read a story that makes me feel less alone in the craziness I now call “life.”

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted was that book for me.  As I was reading it, I thought, “This is just like Good Grief with a little Under the Tuscan Sun mixed in!” This comparison was written in many other reviews, something that I’m sure Bridget Asher (aka, Julianna Baggott...Asher is her pen name) may be a little tired of hearing.  But it’s true.  Just like Good Grief, the widow in the story (Heidi) is funny, quirky, and relatable.  She and her late husband seem like the couple that everyone wishes they knew.  And just like Under the Tuscan Sun, she takes on a remodeling job (this time in France) and learns a lot about herself during the process.

For someone who is either lost in a book or watching HGTV...this was the perfect mix for me.

Many of us have read Good Grief and I don’t know about you...but it amazed me how Lolly Winston could write a piece of fiction about being a widow that just seemed so real.  The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted is much the same way.  I looked up Ms. Baggott’s bio and she’s not widowed.  She’s happily married and living in Florida.  But she writes things like:

“...these were my fears.  As many versions of Henry that I lost, I was losing his version of me.  I loved that version – the one he invented....Where had those versions of Heidi gone?  Were they lost forever?”

And I have never read anything so true.

The main “widow” difference between the two books is that we meet Heidi when she is two years into her journey.  Although she seems to have a wonderful and understanding family, there is that hint of “she should be moving forward a little faster” that we have all experienced from someone outside our grief circle.  Heidi is also a mother to an 8-year-old son who, upon his father’s death, develops a little OCD and is constantly afraid of coming into contact with any unwanted germs.  Heidi seems to be aware that there is something she “should” do about it (there’s that dreaded word again)...that there is something she “should” be doing about a lot of things.  But she’s just too overwhelmed with life to figure it out.

Anyone else been there??

Now, I realize that going to France and remodeling a four bedroom house may not be in the cards for most of us.  And there may be certain parts of the story that are not just like your own.  But there are so many words, sentences, and paragraphs that will make you stop and slowly breathe out, “Yes.  Yes.  That’s exactly what it’s like.”

Perfect example:

“I loved his body – this physical shape that carried his soul, this body that I never got to kiss goodbye, that I never saw again.  Not even in my dreams about Henry, which were always strangely bureaucratic.  He would be stepping out of a squad car being returned to me while some voice-over narration explained that he wasn’t really dead.  It was simply a clerical error.  The dreams always ended before he reached me.  He was gone.  Gone.  I used to beg to have him back, pleading God, but here now, I wanted simply to be allowed to touch his skin with the tips of my fingers.  If I asked for just this one small thing, did I have more a chance?  Could I be allowed to have just that?”

I hear ya, sister.

For more blogs and articles from other widow(er) writers, join us at www.theWiddahood.com!  


© Catherine Tidd 2011

Father's Day: Both Grieving and Grateful

I love my father as the stars - 

he's a bright shining example 

and a happy twinkling in my heart.  

~Terri Guillemets

I’m going to try and keep this one short and sweet (you know how I have the talent of the “prattle”).  I know many of us are struggling this weekend.  Many of us are missing the father of our children, our own fathers, or are just trying to work through yet another “family” weekend. 

And when I say work, I mean work.

This week has been a tough one for me as well.  As I said in a Father’s Day blog on The Denver Post’s Mile High Mamas, Father’s Day begins my “cluster” of milestones.  Many of us have them and I’ve always thought how strange it is that it works out that way.  It always seems like our spouse died around a birthday or a holiday that makes one season unbearable for us.

For me...it’s now.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and in a week it will be my birthday.  A couple of weeks after that is the anniversary of my husband’s death and then 2 days after that is our wedding anniversary.

As many of us know, the anticipation of these milestones is usually harder than the actual day.  My own grief and frustration about grieving finally built up this week until I had a blow up of epic proportions at about midnight on Wednesday.  If there was a hole in my face...I was leaking from it. For a couple of hours, I allowed myself to cry, vent, and generally not feel good about this whole widdahood thing.

I think I scared my dog, but I feel much better now.

This week has also been incredibly emotional for me because some good friends of ours called with some news about their newborn that sent me into a tailspin.  Now these are the friends who you know should be parents, but take their own sweet time going about it.  And just when you think it’s never going to happen...they announced over the winter that they were expecting. 

But earlier this week they called to tell me something that no parent ever wants to hear...whether it’s about your child or someone elses.

Their 3 week old baby’s heart had started failing (apparently due to a birth defect they didn’t catch) and had been taken in for emergency by-pass surgery.

My first thought when they told me this was, “Why wasn’t my husband here?”  He was part of the foursome.  Part of the team.  I mean...I could talk to the mother about the ins and outs of breastfeeding and all of the child birth stories that tend to make men leave for manlier pastures.  He should be here for the conversation about how hungover they both were for the birth of their children and how it might be possible to attach a remote control motor to a stroller so they won't have to leave their napping positions under the tree at the park.

For a moment...I felt like a very poor substitute.

It’s taken me a week to realize that...even though I may feel inadequate in picking up the slack for the both of us as a parenting couple...I must be coming across okay to the outside world.  This morning it dawned on me...they called.  They called me.  They knew he wasn’t home.  They knew he couldn’t come with me to fill in meaningless conversation during the endless hours that seem to happen at the hospital.  They knew I was flying solo.

And I was enough.

My friends will get to go home today with their beautiful month old daughter and this morning I woke up with a feeling that overpowered my dread of Father’s Day.  Even though there is still a sadness in my heart that I can’t explain that my husband will never meet this beautiful little girl, I remembered the look on his friend’s face last night at the hospital as he watched his baby sleep...the baby he could have so easily lost. 

And even though I will desperately miss my husband tomorrow, I will be grateful that there is a dad out there who will be spending the day with his daughter...when there was a chance that things could have turned out so differently.