I have never been married, which means that I have never been widowed.
I have, however, been around widows all my life, since the life expectancy for men in my family is significantly shorter than that of the ladies.
Both of my grandmothers were widows for many years, and I was particularly close to my mother’s mother, my “Mom Mom,” who lost the love of her life in 1968 and basically existed for the next seventeen years, until she could be with her beloved Mike again.
She was only 52 when he died and never looked at another man.
My mother was even younger when she lost my father, who died of cancer at the age of 43. Lucy was also 43 and spent the next 32 years raising her five children while keeping her own company.
My mother was exceptionally beautiful in the Sophia Loren tradition of Mediterranean goddesses, and many admirers sniffed around over the years.
But Lucy had, like her mother and most penguins, mated for life.
My other grandmother was widowed when her soulmate Ed passed away, and for the next seventeen years, she also refused the amorous attentions of some Southwest Philly neighbors.
My mom and her mother were Italian, my paternal grandmother was French and Swedish, but they had the same spirit: one and done.
I have friends who have lost their husbands, including a woman who is very dear to me and lost her husband at a tragically young age.
She never remarried, either, although there is always time for that. She’s beautiful, an Ivy League grad, and has an exceptional heart. Life is unpredictable.
Three generations of widows, following a similar script. I also know widows who happily remarried and built new lives, not better ones, just different.
My point is that you can never enter the heart and mind of a widow, much less attack her for the way she chooses to mourn her loss.
That is exactly what is happening with a very high-profile widow, Erika Kirk.
Erika’s husband was assassinated a few months ago, and his wife and business partner have been very visible in the public eye since his death.
That has angered some people, almost entirely on the left, that sort of progressive woman who specializes in crocheting pink hats and considering abortion to be a sacrament.
One of those women, a podcaster named Jennifer Welch, decided that she couldn’t take it anymore and unleashed a firehose of vitriol at Erika, calling her a “grifter” and other choice epithets. This is just a taste of the acid she threw:
“[Erika Kirk is] an opportunistic grifter who weaponizes your gender to demean women. [She is] a walking, talking, breathing example as to why nobody, number one, wants to be a Christian, and number two, wants to be a female hypocrite such as [her.]”
And then she added that the assassinated husband was a “racist” and a “homophobe.”
In the first place, I am not sure where Welch gets her facts about “nobody wanting to be a Christian,” when the number of Catholic converts has actually skyrocketed over the last decade, and the pews are filled in other Christian churches.
Perhaps women who think that killing babies in the womb have a problem with the church, but that’s kind of a niche audience.
But even beyond that rather ignorant and bigoted suggestion from a woman whose face looks like a human billboard for a variety of Botox products, the idea that you would attack a widow whose young husband was murdered in front of thousands of people because you don’t like the way she is mourning his death is just repellent.
It is not quite as repellent as the horrific jokes from the left about Charlie Kirk’s murder, but it’s close enough to make me realize that hate not only has a home, it’s actually involved in Trump-level real estate development, among leftists.
You don’t attack widows. You just don’t do it. If a woman decides a few months after she buries her husband to go on OurTime.com to look for companionship, you keep your mouth shut.
If she decides to enter the convent, you keep your mouth shut.
If she decides to move to India and live on an ashram, or take voice lessons and annoy the neighborhood with her gurgling, or join Snapchat to communicate with the grandkids, or adopt ten more cats, or become a vegan, or become obsessed with Pilates, or become a late-in-life Swiftie, or even shoot herself up with enough Botox to kill those ten cats, you do not say anything.
Unless she is the reason that her husband is dead, in which case she would be an episode on “48 Hours,” you have no right to criticize the way that she grieves.
Some women, like the women in my family, mourn with quiet grace, saving their tears for the moments when they can be alone.
Other women launch joyfully into life, seeking new relationships and new adventures. And others will do what Erika Kirk is doing, honoring her husband by continuing his work and keeping his name alive.
She is a woman to admire, emulate and respect.
As far as the Jennifer Welches of the world, I would be surprised if they understood what love demands, what its loss signifies, and what it means to be a decent human being.
This article originally appeared in the Delco Times.
