"Has anyone hit on you yet?"
My brother asked me this a few months into my grieving.
"No," I told him. "Of course not. I have widow cooties."
Today we’re proud to publish Susan
Seligson’s personal essay, “Life
After Death.” She took time to speak with us about the writing process,
love, grief, sex — and what happens when you just want to get hit on, but all you
receive are hugs. We'll turn it over to Susan:
“In the months following my
husband¹s death, I couldn¹t write much. I resisted some friends’ well-meaning
insistence that I write about what I was experiencing. Throughout my career
I¹ve told my own stories in a way that — or so I¹m often told — touches a
common nerve, makes people laugh, cry, or both. But it takes time to gain the
clarity to do this. (Joan Didion wrote nothing for a long time before she began
her stunning book The Year of Magical
Thinking.) I may never feel compelled to tell the whole story, but this
Nerve essay touches on just one aspect of widowhood I find provocative — how
recent widows are habitually viewed as asexual — and one I can¹t recall reading
much about. I’m eager to see comments from readers, especially those who have
lost their partners and can relate to that feeling of ‘otherness.’”
Read
the entire essay here.
