A Widow's Journey - River Cruises, Castles, And Yale Docents, A Booming Industry For The Happily Bereaved

Vicki Adams had been married for fifty years when her husband, Arthur, passed away quite suddenly, unexpectedly, and accidentally.  He had choked on piece of lamb gristle, and no Heimlich, even if applied properly (she hauled him around the room in a bear hug until he turned blue and passed out) could have saved him. By the time 911 arrived, he was as cold as stone. 

She was a practical woman.  Death was a part of life, and only God knew when it would come; and more importantly she had put up with the man for more years than she should have.  A question of sunken costs - children, homes in Washington and Sarasota, case-hardened joint trusts - and varied outside interests (hospital volunteering, campaign worker, ceramics) which took her mind off her marriage and the rather pedestrian affair it had become. 

So Arthur's passing while mourned and regretted, was a blessing in disguise. Despite so many years of marriage, she was still a relatively young woman by today's standards, and there were things she wanted to do. 

Like most widows, the first thing she did after her desk was cleared of deeds, contracts, financial statements, and tax forms, was to engage a travel agent.  'Take me someplace', she said. 'I don't care where'. 

Her request was not as cavalier or indifferent as it seems.  It was the trip itself which mattered, a longboat away from Northwest Washington to parts unknown.  It was a loosing of her moorings, unfurling of her sails, and motoring out to open water which mattered, not the axis of the compass. 

Being practical, however, and attentive to detail - forks always in the right drawer, pickles and olives on the second shelf, and hospital corners on the beds - she had to consider destination.  Without a place in mind, the travel agent could do nothing, so she picked the simplest, most tried and true, and most frequently sailed - a river cruise down the Danube. 

 

Now, to be honest, Vicki wasn't exactly sure where the Danube was or which way it flowed, but it was enough to know that it would be luxury accommodations, a learned guide, and congenial, likeminded fellow passengers. One was expected to eat communally and share experiences, so the clientele list was of considerable importance. 

'We are an exclusive cruise line', the brochure read. 'Catering to those who appreciate good food, good company, history and culture, and beautiful scenery.  We do not disappoint' and when Vicki met Samantha, the woman in charge of recruiting, selecting, and placing customers she was delighted.  The young women expressed just the right amount of sympathy for Vicki's loss, the right measure of enthusiasm for her decision to travel, and just the right amount of professional guidance.  

Many of these river cruises catered to the recently 'singled'  - youngish widows and widowers interested in meeting someone with whom to share declining years - but Vicki was not, or rather not yet, in the market for marriage.  She at least wanted to let the dust settle - a rather unfortunate slip of the tongue since poor Arthur was now ashes in an urn - before thinking of partnership or something more. 

No, this river cruise was simply a means of getting away from tax forms, condolences, and best wishes.  She wanted intellectual and social co-equals.  The rest could be shelved for later. 

The trip was not exactly a disappointment - the food on board was indeed first rate, the weather mild and sunny, the accommodations left nothing to be desired - but the passengers were, well, a somewhat diminished lot.  The years had taken its toll in particularly unkind ways to this particular group of travelers, and the designer clothes, plastic surgery, and stylish coiffures did little to help the dour, pasty look of most of the women. 

As far as the men were concerned, there were few.  Despite the agency's desire to equalize the demographics, older men had either died off or were not interested in sitting in deck chairs listening to lectures about Leopold and Hermione or the turrets on the king's castle. 

These men who never really understood women in the first place, stumbled over themselves now that they were on the market again, had two left feet when it came to courtship or even an exchange on the most banal of subjects. Women, always the most steady and forward-looking of the sexes, had no trouble steering their way through first contacts. Life was simply what it was, newly configured, and to be navigated no differently than any other phase. 

A waste of money, Vicki concluded.  She could have taken a long-term Air B&B rental on the Left Bank for what she spent on the tour, moved at her own pace, engaging or not engaging as the mood and circumstances demanded; but once she tried that, she found that her days were long, spiritless, and quite empty.  Even the clueless men on the Danube trip at least provided some chatter and desultory interest.  Wandering the streets of Paris, dining alone, and sitting for hours by the Canal St. Martin was not exactly an anodyne for the departed Arthur. 

 

'Give it another try', said her Wellesley classmate, Brenda, 'and come with us'.  An extended girls night out is what Brenda suggested, former college friends who would have a great time getting to know each other again and to face the new world of 'singlehood' together.  The trip would be down (or up) the Rhine. The cultural, historical character of the cruise really didn't matter, for the purpose of the trip was to distance oneself even further from the years of dutiful marital engagement, and be girls again.

It turned out that despite their college pedigree, the five women on the tour had somehow lost their good sense over the years, and the much anticipated reunion turned out to be little more than a gossipy, hen party.  If this is what had been tamped down after fifty years of marriage, God save me, thought Vicki who thanked them all for including her, said 'We must do this again', and offered fond goodbyes on the dock. 

What gets into these widows? What's wrong with staying put, continuing one's life as it has been led?  Why these river follies?  These eager docents ('Notice the cornice')? This peripatetic money in the bank for cruise ship owners? 

Doing something, that was it. Staying at home would be considered moping, whereas the modern woman had too many inner resources to mope, and busyness, especially the foreign kind expressed their real selves in fine form. 

Loneliness has a way of eroding the most adamant resoluteness, and before long Vicki was again on a cruise, this time up and down the Norwegian fjords. The austere surroundings, the cold weather, the absolute silence of the narrow passages through the glaciers, were inhibiting to any kind of emotional renewal. It made her think of death which was certainly not what she paid good money for. She and her shipmates drank Norwegian aquavit and botanical gins without thinking, and before long the whole trip became a maudlin, weepy affair.  

'Modulation', Vicki concluded.  The National Gallery on Monday, lunch at the Four Seasons on Tuesday, a weekend on the Northern Neck, Thursdays, Kant, Schopenhauer, and the Intellectual Mystics of the Nineteenth Century, and Fridays flower arranging, all of which became the caricature she had always hoped to avoid.  She was interested in none of these things, and did them only to fill time.  What past sins required such penance?

 

Speaking of which, the answer might be religion.  A nunnery perhaps, a return to Sunday mass, tryouts for the choir, prayer, organ recitals.  But that too was a caricature - old women on their knees in abject prayer, facing eternity and asking for a divine light to show the way. 

So she was left with nothing in the cupboard or in the tank. And so it was, despite everything that she went on another cruise, again down the Danube; but the tour operator called her two weeks before sailing to tell her that because of prolonged European drought, the river had dried up and the tour had to be cancelled.

That was the way her day had been going, she laughed, and for the first time felt glad that she had finally shed Arthur and every last possible river tour.