Yesterday, the Pavarotti commemorations continued apace with a Masterclass shown on BBC4 but as I was catching up with reading the Sunday newspapers, I only passively watched parts of this programme. During the preceding afternoon I had engaged in discussions with family giving my account of my experiences in the Methodist centre during the last week where I found myself the lone male in the company of 15 other attendees, who were all female of course and many of them widowed. So I decided to do a modicum of research and discovered that at my age, there are 4.25 as many widows as there are widowers (i.e. bereaved wives rather than husbands). I did expect an imbalance but has not expected that it would be quite so marked as this. Wondering if there was any particular support available to widowers (i.e. males) I entered ‘widowers’ as a search term into Google and was grimly amused to discover that Google and other search engines took the ‘widows’ art of the word ‘widowers’ and so the vast majority of the entries were discussions of the problems faced by widows rather than widowers (mainly having to take charge of financial and other household tasks previously undertaken by their now deceased husbands) But I did find the occasional entry addressed the problems faced by widowers and one imprecation that came out loud and clear was ‘Do not make any major decisions for at least one year after losing your wife’ As you might imagine there were several horror stories of widowers who had parted with houses, possessions and cash before they were in an emotional state to make an informed decision. Also, it was quite common for men to rush into a search for new partners which often turned out to be a bad idea, particularly if turned out to be a relationship that they had tried to form after the death of a spouse. I have to say that none of this really told me anything that I did not know but hearing the advice and cautionary tales of others can always be a salutary experience and I am taking due note of both what is being said to me and also that which I read about the subject matter. But I think I will conclude by observing that the problems faced by widowers is relatively under-discussed and unhighlighted and many men (but not myself!) sink into an isolated depression. For my own part, I am trying to engage in some sort of social discourse at least once every day and hence I already have some routines involving both keeping myself fit (Pilates, Tai Chi) as well as meeting for coffee on 3-4 days of the week. That having been said, relying upon chance alone to meet people means that one can have ‘bad’ days as well as ‘good’ days and social contacts have to be arranged beforehand with texts and/or telephone messages. But, as I keep telling myself, other people have their own families and grandchildren who often feature prominently in their thoughts and their life space. This week, though, I have a large funeral to attend to which I am actually looking forward as I can probably meet many of my fellow church parishioners in a social rather than a liturgical venue with the possibility of more extended discussions rather than a few words on the steps of a windy church after the weekly service.
The countdown is continuing apace for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages and it is thought that only about 20 of the original 200 may still be alive. The horrible and gruesome truth but nobody has yet, to my knowledge put a figure upon it, is he number of hostages who were killed by the Israelis themselves when they made so many strikes against Gaza reducing practically the whole of it to rubble. There will be considerable attention to the starved and emaciated condition of the hostages once they are released but I wonder of the point will be made that the rest of the Palestinian society has been subject to a policy of starvation given the massive restriction on food supplied allowed by the Israelis into Gaza. It is perhaps a source of great regret, but not surprising,that so many hostages will be in a starved state when their own captors are themselves starving and deaths from starvation amongst Palestinian children is already well documented.
In the morning, my son called round to pick up a bag he had inadvertently left in the house the previous afternoon. We took the opportunity to discuss a finance course that my son had decided to take out of pure interest but our conversations ranged far and wide after that. Then de departed to go and get a ‘flu vaccination whilst I walked down into town. I had a chat with some of our church friends at the bottom of the road who were busy tidying up bits in the garden (very praiseworthy!) I then went into Waitrose picking up my newspaper and having a coffee available free to members who bring their own cup. Then I bumped into my Italian friend and, as it was a nice morning, we sat on one of the outside benches for a few minutes to carry on our conversation. Then it was a case of walking slowly back up the hill and thinking about lunch where I used up some mince, small potatoes which were parboiled and finished off in oil and green beans.
I had a bit of a doze in the afternoon after sorting out the newspapers before they get thrown away. The news media was dominated as we knew it would be by the return of the twenty Israelis held hostage by Hamas but only four bodies were repatriated. The reason for the shortfall of bodies is that some of them are under the rubble of destroyed buildings and tunnels and he whereabouts of others is unknown as those guarding them or knowing their whereabouts have themselves been killed. Incidentally, I note that in passing that the Israelis held by Hamas are called ‘hostages’ (as they are being used as a bargaining counter) whereas the vastly greatly number of Palestinians taken off the streets and held in ‘administrative detention’ are called ‘detainees’. The difference is terminology is interesting but appears to derive from a legal principle that is a person is captured and then as a bargaining counter, this is a ‘hostage’ but a person just captured and not used as a bargaining counter is a ‘detainee’ But whatever the precise legal and semantic nuances offered by each side of the conflict, the net result is practically the same.