“We all get through it, the grieving, I mean, with the help of friends and, for me, learning to be single they were probably just as important. And you know, they seem to learn also, but it’s a mixed bag.”

Here are Victor’s reflections.

“Friends really did reach out to me with lots of sympathy, calling, wanting to know “How are you managing?” Most of them had learned that I am pretty self-reliant and that, along with hospice in the last months, I’d managed alone. But still, they were concerned now that I really was alone. And it showed and I really was appreciative. Still am.

My daughter told me to accept every invitation; if I didn’t, she said, pretty soon there wouldn’t be any. So I did, and they kept inviting. The invitations and the company were really great. I’m sure, as I look back, that I wasn’t the best company, not too with it, as we say, but the suppers and even the coffee meets helped so much, gave me a break. There can be lonely days and nights without them.

Yet I had the feeling sometimes, when I accepted an invitation that I was an extra, an add on.

Sometimes I got matched, forewarned or not, with a single woman. Even then there is this uncomfortable feeling, of a patched-up arrangement. I have this feeling still, even when it is just me, or even just me and another.

I sometimes secretly wished that we, the two of us put together by our hosts for the occasion, could go off somewhere to talk, alone, and skip the dinner.  I think you’d understand why I felt this way.

But what I want to say is how important the support from friends was, especially in the early stages. They knew that it wasn’t like old times, and of course I knew that, but it was support, and I think that’s what made it so helpful.