Widowish: A Memoir
By: Melissa Gould / Narrated By: Rachel Botchan
Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
Where I FINally lost all sympathy and wanted to throttle Gould… wait for it… wait for it… HERE:
A grieeeeeeving mother takes her middle-school daughter to Paris (!) and leaves their verrrrry sick old dog at home, leaving friends to put the dog to sleep… See? Couldn’t you see that being The Last Straw for me, noted Adorer of Animals that I am?
But lemme pull back just a sec here to tell you what-all I’d been dealing with when m’ poor back finally broke with the whole, Ooooops! I knew the dog was sick, but I didn’t think she’d DIE—Gee, maybe I shoulda taken her to the vet before jaunting off, maybe I should’ve postponed the jet setting, maybe my kid doesn’t neeeeed to go to Paris just months after her dad died.
What I’d been dealing with was a verrrrry light and shallow treatment of grief and early widowhood.
Now, now, now—I KNOW it: Everybody grieves differently, and it’s AWFUL to judge a person’s process, but Jiminy H. Cricket, Gould. Can you do a bit more than just skim the surface of sorrow?
I thought Widowish would be a great Listen for Women’s History Month; kinda a: We’re all in this together sorta deal. And to lose a husband fairly early? Oh good cow, I have NIGHTMARES of that (I canNOT tell you how I tremble and quake each time my husband and I have The Talk and go through where Papers are, where Policies are, Whom I’d Have to Contact etc etc etc). I sooo totally know how blessed I am, as I’ve friends who’ve had to go through this.
It turns out? I dunno if it’s Gould’s personality or if it’s the many blessings in her life, but she zooooomed right through some of the process danged quick.
Okay, it starts off well enough and is fairly gripping: Her husband Joel, who was earlier diagnosed with MS, is hospitalized and is in grave/serious condition. After screaming at the hospital doctors to fix him, she starts to realize that they can’t. After eeeeeons and maaaaany tests, it turns out that it’s NOT his MS or a reaction to the hardcore meds he takes for the disease. It just so happens that, tragically, a mosquito did him in: West Nile, and whilst in a coma, the doctors break it to Gould that he’s not being treated so much as he’s just flat-out on life support. Horrific listening as we hear her realizing that she MUST make a decision, to free him from his suffering, that even if he did come out of the coma, his quality of life will be nil. Tragic, and I felt for her. And interspersed throughout this journey are snippets and stories of how they met, their life together, the raising of their daughter. Kinda sweet even if we’re never really given a sense of who Joel is, of why he’s considered to be a funny man (One awful joke as an example, and then Gould is off to something else).
The worst happens, she lovingly says goodbye, and then…?
Dude, she’s banging her daughter’s guitar teacher within six months even as she keeps shrieking to anyone who crosses her path that She’s A Widow, cry for her! Now again—p’raps it makes her feel better, but? If she’s forcing her daughter to do a Let’s Remember Everything About Daddy exercise regularly (Even when her daughter fesses up that she’d rather not and that, Mom, cut it out: Stop telling me how to feel), she’d probably get more of the sympathy she’s whine Whine WHINING for if she wasn’t furtively (NOT sharing with her daughter or friends) hooking up with a guy for petting sessions and rolling around in the sheets (Before his own son comes home).
Look, she found comfort, and every widow/widower should have that. But GOD, accept this as a blessing and stop wallowing. Further, I MUST admit that I have sore little patience with the suffering of the well-to-do. Even before Joel died, the family was globetrotting and making memories—how many of us are given opportunities like that? To work wherever (She’s an LA writer working in showbiz), to quibble about iffy finances that many newly bereaved have to deal with (But which she herself doesn’t—hence scooting to Paris with a barely teen-aged girl who’d really rather just be on her phone), to being able to get stellar medical care and have experts on the case?
Rachel Botchan? Never heard of her, but she’s okay as a narrator except she has a reeeeeally young sounding voice. When we get to the part where Gould takes her new (Well, over 3-months by then) squeeze to a party and is asked by someone there: When did your husband die? Like, only nine months ago? we’re treated to snarky things Gould tells us she really wishes she should’ve said to that person, and Botchan’s voice makes it all seem like a 13-year old spitting and stamping her foot in a self-righteous hissy fit. So, uhm… Botchan as a verrrrry young sounding narrator didn’t really make me feel for Gould.
Then it all ends sooo abruptly right when it could’ve started getting good and COULD’ve helped new widows: A group for widows is started, and it’s not a bereavement mournful group, but a society of women where: Hey, I get ya—I’ve been there/Am going through that too. All potluck, with a good amount of wine, this was TOTALLY a missed opportunity to share the experiences of others who are grieving but who need to keep getting up every day, who might be ready to go on, never forgetting their sorrow in the process.
Alas, nope. It just ends, but not before Gould has a chance to tell us how awesome she is for starting the group. This is all soooo me me meeeee, the whole story—Where we get to hear how Joel’s mom is ALL onboard with Gould tapping the guitar guy, where even the lady at the pet goods store lets her wail as they gather up items that she might need, where all and sundry listen to her sharing about how the best comfort she’s gotten has been from Joel Osteen, the Real Housewives, psychics, and of COURSE that spiritual guru Kim Kardashian. I mean, who wouldn’t find comfort with how stellar all those people conduct themselves.
So noooo, not for me, and p’raps maybe only reeeeeally young widows and widowers might get something from it. Maybe when you’re so young one of the really hard things is to do without sex, and it’s just a bit of a hookup rather than being faithless to the memory of a dear one? Altho’ to be baldly honest: She ain’t that young, and seriously:
1) It reeeeally puts the daughter you love in a bit of a bind if you start banging her guitar teacher before her much-loved dad’s been in the ground not 1/2 a year, and
2) If you’re dog has been acting sick for a looooong time, and you know your daughter LOVES the dog like a sister? Do something OTHER than jaunt out of the country. It’s sweet that y’all mourned whilst snapping pics at the Eiffel Tower at night, but dude! Who wants to cry in front of strangers?
Oh, wait: You, Gould, do. That’s right: I’m a widow I’m a widow I’m a widow. You told me that one, over and over and over. It’s just that other than using that label to paste over your forehead, it doesn’t seem to mean that much to you.
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