Another Real Housewives of New York Post

I find so much comfort in hearing other widows' experiences and how they are dealing with widowhood, how it has affected their lives, how they handle guilt, how it has changed them, and how they have ultimately moved forward or even stayed stagnant.  It reminds me that I'm not alone in my grief.

I watched "The Real Housewives of New York" reunion and Carole and Dorinda talked candidly about their experiences as widows again.

Dorinda spoke about how her and Richard had a talk before he died that she shouldn't do the whole "Queen Victoria" thing where she walks around in black because he told her that she likes people and she likes love and she likes companionship and she did fulfill her vows till death did them part and she did them correctly.

Then Carole shares that she envies Dorinda that conversation because denial doesn't outlast death but with Anthony it really did, so they never got to have that conversation about moving on.  He wasn't accepting that he was going to die and he was fighting until the very, very end, so there was no conversation about moving on.

Jeff, like Anthony, fought and denied until the very end.  We thought he was going to get out of that bed and keep fighting when he first got home from the hospital.  And we kept thinking that until there literally was no more conversation, until he slipped into a coma and couldn't speak anymore.  Then it was too late to have the conversation.  

I have a lot of guilt about moving forward because we didn't have that conversation.

People say that he wouldn't want me to be alone.  Leaving me alone was the only thing he was upset about, the only thing that he actually expressed to me regarding him dying, he said that he just didn't want to leave me alone.

Because I never got to hear him say that it was ok to move forward with another person, I worry a lot about whether or not he really would want me to move forward and love again the way I loved him, or if he just didn't want to leave me alone.

My guilt monster is an evil beast.  I wonder if I was able to have that conversation with Jeff, like Dorinda had with Richard about moving forward after he died, would I even have a guilt monster?