W is for Widowhood Research and How I Feel About it

Recent research on widowhood has gotten a lot of press. If you're a widow, you could hardly have missed it. Results of a recent study suggest that widows who don't remarry have a higher risk of developing dementia than widows who do.

That study, as you might expect, really upset me. After five plus years as a widow, I have no remarriage on the horizon. Is there a deadline? If you remarry ten years after widowhood, can you still avoid dementia or is it too late?


On the other hand, I wonder if the study is flawed. What was the age of the widows who participated? Younger widows are more likely to remarry; there is a larger pool of available men. Widows in their 80s are, I would imagine, unlikely to remarry. Many widows find male companions and that's fine. They don't feel a need to remarry.

Still, the idea of dementia haunts me. Is it worse to deteriorate from a physical disease or to lose your mind?

My mother had severe dementia caused by small strokes. At first she repeated, then she became illogically cranky, then paranoid, then she gradually forgot everything. What was it like to wake up day after day, not knowing where she was or later, who she was? What did she think about? Did she think at all?

One day we were in the car and she turned to look at me. She patted the passenger seat and said, "Twenty-five years and you'll be sitting here." It's been twenty-two years since I heard that, and it still gives me chills.

Should I work harder at finding a husband...or just take my chances and figure that life is what it is.