We spent a night at my grandma’s house when we passed through South Dakota on our family road trip this summer. She wasn’t there. She spends a good chunk of the summer with my aunt in Minnesota at her lake house. Because she wasn’t there and we had the whole family plus my parents, my husband and I stayed in her room. This is not the house of my childhood years growing up with my grandparents. This house is far away from that house, but right next door to another one of my aunts. She moved here, with my grandpa, when they were in their later 80’s. The split-level four story house on the hill they had lived in, in all my memories, was too much to care for and at times navigate in their later years. Not to mention, it was quite far from any family support.

This modest two-story, left side of the duplex, has been her home ever since. We celebrated my grandfathers 90th birthday here, and then less than a year later I told him I loved him for the last time while walking out this front door. His face is all over the house still. Its been nearly 7 years since he passed. There was a moment I allowed this to pang me with judgment around how little I display pictures of Tony and how many new memories I have made since his death. I shuddered, shaking it off as I remembered our lives look very different.

My grandmother is a widow, like me.

Unlike me, she was widowed after more than 65 years of marriage. Together they saw all their children raised, married, and have and raise children of their own. And unlike me, she had already begun to develop dementia before the cancer in my grandfather’s throat made it impossible to swallow. As I look at the pictures of him, I know he is loved and missed by so many. I also know he is one of the only people my grandmother can really remember.

I wondered to myself, and later out loud to my husband and then my mother, would my grandmother still be alone if she hadn’t gotten dementia. She is not alone, in the sense that my aunt and her family and some in-home care providers come around regularly and take her to do things. She is well loved and cared for. But as I settle into bed in her room, I see what a life of solitude looks like. I have felt that life to some extent. Where we wash our faces, brush our teeth, put on our pajamas, and crawl into an empty bed. One light on the nightstand lit. No one to give your last thoughts of the day to or rest our tired head on their shoulder. These interactions are always my favorite scenes in Madam Secretary (my favorite show right now). The scenes where Elizabeth and Henry McCord engage in the dance of their nightly ritual and converse about their world as they rearrange bed pillows and transition to reading glasses, never missing a beat in conversation.

In my world, its one of the parts of the day I cherish the most.

I don’t suppose I always cherished it before, in fact, I don’t suppose I had a regular routine for bed, nor did we always go to bed at the same time. I often used that time to be alone after a long day of mothering, and he would be snoring by the time I got there. His job was hard labor, early mornings and exhausting days. I was lucky if he made it to the bed before the snoring began most evenings. But when all of a sudden there is no one snoring in the bed or monopolizing the sink or peeing while you are in the shower…you miss it.

I imagined my grandparents settling into sleep. They were a good team, always. I imagined them maybe reading, maybe praying, maybe just giving a forehead kiss and putting out the lights. I imagined my grandmother now, maybe happily tucking herself in, maybe fearfully wondering where she is, maybe talking to God or grandpa or herself in the darkness.

I wondered if my family, specifically my grandmother’s five children, would have embraced a new life and love if she had been given the chance. I am sure they would have, had that been her choice. Although, I have known several older widows who quickly decide that they will live alone until they go too. I do understand that decision. I understand why we feel like we have to decide. That we have to say well that was “the love of my life.” But do we? Do we have to decide? Can we instead just work on picking up the pieces of our lives, at any age? Can we mourn and grieve and cry and weep and moan and hurt…and then live some more and see where that takes us? I think society has made it hard to see life after loss as including new love and that is especially true in our older years. And what if that was our second love and we are now elderly and twice widowed? Where does that leave us?

There isn’t a formula for this. There isn’t a guidebook. Its just live and see how living goes. One step at a time, one day at a time. And if happiness finds you in solitude, awesome. If happiness finds you in love, wonderful. If happiness finds you with family or friends, great. I think letting happiness find us is the key to living after loss. And I think it will, if we hold the door open for it…in spite of our sadness, in spite of our fears, and in spite of the world’s timelines and expectations.

My grandmother and I at my second wedding last fall.

My grandma with my oldest just after he was born…9 years ago!

My grandparents at their 60th wedding anniversary bash.

My grandma on the steps of the house on the hill.

My oldest and my middle most (born the month after my grandpa passed) with my dad and grandma.