Architecturally they are a familiar sight.  A railed rooftop platform of thick wood or wrought iron that graces the top of older homes along the coastline.  Some newer homes have them added but are useless as there is no staired access from either outside or in.  It is simply mimicry of the style of an "older home."  At one time these widow's walks had women standing up there gazing longingly out to sea, waiting for a ship that might never come home, waiting for a husband that would never return to her.  How long did they wait for a ship that was long over due?  How long did the community accept that "any day now he will come home?"  And after the woman had to accept that she was a widow, did she return to the walk on top of her house?  Did she stray up there in the early morning hours before her children woke up to stare out at an unforgiving ocean that took but never returned?  Did she cry and curse the wind and the waves, and life with its unending twists of fate?

For me, grief is very much like that.  I feel like I'm pacing back and forth across a widow's walk.  First there is disbelief.  I lived in that shell for a solid two weeks before I said it out loud.  "He is not coming back." I still sometimes find myself falling down that hellhole.  In his book, "A Grief Observed," C. S. Lewis wrote of the feelings you thought you'd gotten past had a way of coming around again.  I have found that to be very true.

Beyond the disbelief, I feel fear, lost, worry, and heartache so intense that it is like a weight is on my chest.  I can't catch my breath sometimes.  I am afraid about money, dying alone, and having to live each day without him.  I feel lost, as if I am incomplete.  He was my voice when my own wasn't loud enough.  He was a steadying hand when my arthritis made me unsteady.  He was the maker of the magic tea that was always in the refrigerator.  He was my mirror and in his eyes I saw my worth.  I worry now about everything.  The smallest detail can cause me distress.  I feel fragile now in a way that I never did knowing he was there.

And my heart is broken, shattered into hundreds of thousands of pieces and I will never find them all.  I gave so much of my heart to him.  I adored him.  I adore him still.  I can still hear his laughter.  It was deep and booming and contagious.  My soul is so lonely without him and I think that is the single worst feeling I've ever felt.  I was his shadow and he was mine.  My hand is lonely without his and I wonder if his is lonely without mine.

My children moved me quickly down to be close to my daughter whose the oldest and whose life is more settled.  I see her more than I could see my son with his teaching schedule and his free-lance contracts.  But I am away from the ocean now.  I am no longer near the water.  I keep looking out the window but it's all new and vastly different.  I still wake and expect to smell salt water, hear gulls crying in the wind, and waves hitting on the rocks.  It is all gone.  Though I am very proud of my children, who are just into their adulthood, for stepping up and in and being there for me through their own grief, I am not allowed my widow's walk by the ocean my husband and I love so much and shared every day.

I walk my dogs on concrete rather than beach or bluff or headland.  There is no ocean to gaze out at and dream as we had as a couple.  There are no more pictures of my husband gazing out on the vast mystery that lives in and all around the ocean.  I will never look into his eyes again.  Not in this lifetime.

I wonder what the rooftops felt when the widow's walks became abandoned.  Did the railings that had felt the grip of a lonely woman's hands feel the loss?  Did the wood under her feet sense the absence of her feet as she paced, or stood as still as stone staring at a horizon that refused to give her her heart's desire?  Were the trees that surrounded the house, reaching for the sky, aware that his name was no longer whispered to the wind?  Or was a great part of the widow left there forever to stand watch and wait?

There are two stories I've always liked in the multitude of legends told of New England sailors and their wives.  The first speaks of a man who came to Portsmouth, NH to find a job and start a new life.  He stayed at an inn close to the shoreline and often went to the docks to watch the sailors prepare to leave and the ones returning.  One day he saw a woman standing close to the water looking out towards the entrance to the harbor.  He spoke a polite hello and doffed his hat to the lady.  She told him she was waiting for her husband.  They talked of inconsequencial things but as it grew dark, he offered to walk the lady home and he saw the great sadness on her face.  Gentleman that he was, he took her arm and saw her safely home.  After work the young man went to the docks and saw the woman, stood quietly with her, then saw her home.  Within two weeks there was a heavy storm that blew in off the water and the young man was headed for a tavern rather than the dock, believing that in that weather, the woman would most certainly stay inside.  But she was there, soaking wet, keeping watch, waiting for her beloved husband.  The young man quickly braved the storm to try to escort the lady to her home but she refused.  "He'll be coming and I want him to know I waited, that I never gave up hope."

The young man waited with her until she gave up her vigil for the night.  He escorted her home, then went to the tavern for a whiskey and the warmth of the fire.  The dockworkers and sailors who were there greeted him kindly.  The soft-spoken young man sat at the bar and asked the bartender about the lovely lady who stood watch every day.  One sailor crossed himself and siad, "She's the Widow Perkins.  She never gave up, right up until the night she died of pneumonia for standing out there in all kinds of foul weather.  Yeah, I've heard she goes out there.  My grandmother always said the widow walked the rooftop by day and the docks in the evening when other husbands were sitting down with their wives for supper.  So you've seen her, have you?"

The young man got the shivers and wondered aloud if he should continue to go back.  The bartender said evenly, "It won't make no difference to her if you don't.  You're not in her memory.  All she wants is her husband.  Someday they'll find each other and then they can go home."

The second story is fairly famous and it's one of my favorites.  It is the story of Enoch Arden.  Tennyson's poem of the same name is based on this true story.  Enoch went to sea but was met with tragedy as the boat ran afoul in a fierce storm and was sunk.  Many shipmates died but some lived, Enoch being one of them.  Enoch got to shore and then had to work for his passage home.  It took him seven years to make it back to his wife and son.  In the meantime, his wife had gone to the bluff in front of their house every morning and evening to watch for the sail on the horizon that would be bringing her husband home.  For help around the house, she leaned on Enoch's best friend, a farmer who lived down the road.

The day Enoch returned, he walked excitedly into town and was seen by an elderly gentleman who called him over.  There was a warm welcome for him by the old man but when the old man gripped his arm, Enoch felt a tension in him.

"Son, it's been a long time since you've been home.  Almot seven years your wife waited for you.  Almost seven years she grieved for you.  Son, today is her wedding day.  She's marrying your best friend who stood by her and helped her through all these years.  Your son wsa a baby when you left.  He calls him "father."  I'm sorry, son.  I thought you should know before you got into town.  She did grieve for you, my boy.  She greatly grieved."

It was at that moment that the old man and Enoch heard the church bells signaling that the marriage had taken place.  His heat broke but the goodness and love he felt for his wife and son was endless.  He shook the old man's hand and asked him to say nothing of his having come home,  "She's been through enough.  It's time for her to have happiness.  All I know is the sea.  I'd have to return to her to make my living.  My son and my wife deserve a man who's home."  Enoch turned and left town.  The old man did tell someone, and word did spread bit by bit, but no one told the happy, new family.  Enoch's wife, son, nor his best friend ever knew that he was alive somewhere and had made the sacrifice.

Whenever anyone makes a great sacrifice, they and the sacrifice are sometimes called an Enoch Arden.