The Widower’s Rant: Good Morning, Sunshine

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.

Sometimes it’s because the bed is cozy and warm, and I’m savoring the luxury of an easy morning. Other times it’s just too early. But this morning was different.

Because getting out of bed means starting another day. Starting another day without Beth.

I want to roll to my right and see her hair fanned across the pillow. Holly curled in behind her legs. The covers slowly rising and falling, proof she’s breathing. Alive. Here. Beside me.

Beth was once again in my dreams, maybe that’s why I’m not eager to leave the bed. In the world of dreams, she’s still with me. But dreams don’t follow you out of bed, no matter how much you want them to.

So I avoid reality by nestling deeper under the duvet and doomscrolling. I read an article about how women are looking younger in comparison to their same-aged counterparts from just a few decades ago. Beyond better nutrition, healthcare, all that, they propose that one factor is more women have longer hair as opposed to the mandatory post-50 bob.

I scroll through my photo gallery to see how Beth’s hair changed over the years. There she is, perfect smile, confidently rocking long gray hair. At ease. Happy. Joyful. In so many photos I’m by her side, our heads touch, her hair brushes mine—or where mine used to be before it fled the scene.

Before we were married, Beth was starting her career as a broker trainee at Prudential-Bache. She wore an ultra-short cut with complicated curls. Her hairdresser said the short cut made her look older and more confident. When you’re 24 and trying to convince people to hand over their portfolio (and why anyone would give a 24-year-old, barely a year out of college, their life savings is beyond me), you take any advantage you can get.

Anyway, back to the hair. Her stylist told her she needed a specific Denman brush to make the new ’do work. I still remember the name. And how.

We were headed down to San Diego for some sort of weekend meeting boondoggle, and she desperately needed that brush. Her hair was not cooperating. It was Friday afternoon, and we were hunting down a Denman brush. A very specific one, not just any brush from the venerable Denman company would do. This was pre-internet, pre-mobile phone, so the fastest way was store-hopping down the coast. The bar-hopping I’d been promised at the end of the brush journey sounded a lot more fun.

Beth was trying to keep her cool, but I could feel her frustration and panic bubbling over. She was usually unflappable. Not this afternoon. Finally, as the last store in downtown San Diego was locking up for the weekend, they let us in. Maybe it was my face (“Please, help me!”) or hers (“Get out of my way and let me see the brushes!”) that signaled this was no ordinary shopping trip. And there it was—the Denman brush that that would solve all her problems, or at least every problem in our world this Friday afternoon. And it did. Whew.

It might come as a surprise, but I once owned more than one blow dryer. And a brush, not too different from that Denman. Back then I had a full head of hair. Paired with my look of youthful arrogance, Beth said I appeared more Japanese. She always felt a little cheated that I somehow aged out of the ancestry that first appealed to her.

I glance at an old photo from my fraternity years and see eyes full of burning confidence and drive. Today, the eyes in the mirror carry the miles. Softer, maybe kinder. They’ve witnessed over sixty years of change: putting on the adolescent glare when my dad mocked, “Good morning, Sunshine” when they refused to open in the morning; the little girl I asked to marry me blossoming into an incredible woman, mother, and partner; the challenges of raising kids and stretching paychecks; the icy blue of an office doorway marked “Oncologist.” These are the eyes that watched the love of my life take her last breath.

And today, they’re the same eyes that track terrain rushing at me on skis, scan the bends of a mountain bike trail (sometimes upside down), and soak up the blues of the lake and the majesty of the Sierras. They take in beauty, movement, and risk all at once—reminders that I’m alive, that there’s more to see. Eyes that, even through grief, are learning to look ahead.

Scalp hair has only a modest purpose: shading the head from the sun and helping regulate temperature. Elbows are far more functional. But we’ve turned hair into one of the most visible markers of identity. Its length, color, texture, and style consume countless hours, dollars, and frustrations.

My AI research assistant tells me that the hours people spend on their ’do add up to about 0.36% of global GDP. Meanwhile, the global hair care industry itself is worth about $375 billion in 2024. Denman International Limited of Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland—with its 43 employees and £10.1M turnover—accounts for just 0.0034% of that market. Yet that Friday afternoon in San Diego, it was 100% of my world.

Of all primates, only human hair keeps growing. This relentless growth has given us hair trauma, haircut disasters, children sobbing over trims, and hair all over our house.

After Beth turned 50, she said she wanted to let her hair go naturally gray. I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually told her I thought the brown was better, more youthful. As if a guy with thinning stubble should be allowed to comment on anyone’s hair. During Covid, Beth decided it was time. By then, after eight years of me digesting the idea, I was cheering her on.

To my eye, Beth looked amazing with gray hair. It seemed to give her an extra dose of confidence—projecting, this is how I look and I love it.

Meanwhile, my eyes looked into the mirror with dismay as I kept trimming my hair shorter and shorter as it thinned, until I was down to an eighth-inch of stubble. After Beth died, I felt inspired to shave it all the way off and just rock it. Thankfully, no Denman brush required.

When I stay with C/E, E kindly sets out little bottles of lotion, shampoo, and conditioner in the bathroom for me. I really appreciate her optimism. Or her wanting me to enjoy a touch of five-star lodging. But I digress.

Over the past few weeks, five groups of friends and family have cycled through our lakehouse. We had always hoped that one day people would come to visit us and enjoy the lake.

It’s been wonderful to have a full, busy home again—to set more than one place at the dining room table, to cook for others, to take care of them. Guests offered to help cook or clean up, and I would wave them off, explaining how nice it was for me to care for someone else—something you just can’t do in our house alone.

The last group to visit were long-time family friends from Japan. My parents had watched over N when she was a homestay student at Foothill Junior College in Los Altos, where my mom coordinated the program for students from Japan. Through that, my parents became close with her parents, and I later became friends with her husband.

When we traveled to Kyoto, her family proudly showed us their seven-generation kimono design and manufacturing business. As I scrolled through the photos with N, I could close my eyes and remember the visit as if it were yesterday, not 17 years ago.

My friends brought their 10- and 15-year-old, who couldn’t wait to play in the lake. I wanted this to be a perfect day for them. I got up early while the rest of the house was still in their cozy beds, went to the shop to rent a kayak and a stand-up paddleboard, and loaded the car with extra chairs, towels, and a cooler of snacks. After breakfast at our table, we headed down to the beach together. The boys only left the water for lunch. I watched their family of four paddling across the lake, making lifetime memories, just as our family of four had made memories at Tahoe in the years before.

This was exactly what Beth wanted, for people to share the lake, to have fun, to be outside. I found myself choking back tears again and again that day, mumbling to myself, “We did it, Bethie, we did it. Our friends are staying at our home and having fun playing on the lake. We did it.”

It was everything you wanted, everything we dreamed about. Only sixteen months and one week too late (still counting).

Our friends have left. The laundry is done, the house reset to its solo-occupancy status. I’m free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Liberating and deflating all at once.

Sunlight pours through the glass roof into my treehouse bedroom. My eyes snap open to towering pines rising above me, framing the blue sky of another perfect day at the lake. I am the luckiest man alive, grateful for the journey, the love, and the lifetime that brought me here.

I toss back the duvet. I get out of bed. I start another day…

I miss you Beth. I love you forever.

Donald