Widow Without
By Tash Reddy
(Reach Publishers, R120)
This is a moving book dedicated to women who have been robbed of their beloved spouses by death. The book is particularly moving because it was written by a woman who lost her beloved husband in tragic circumstances.
I happen to have worked with Tash Reddy at the Independent on Saturday, a weekly newspaper in Durban on which both of us were senior reporters, and had the opportunity to get to know her wonderful husband, Denver Reddy, with whom she was head over heels in love.
Every Friday we editorial staff worked until late, putting the finishing touches to the newspaper before it went to print after 10pm, and every Friday, without fail, Denver would come to the news-room bringing Tash something delicious to eat. He would also bring along their young and only son, Daniel.
Denver would bring pizza, fish and chips or fried chicken from one of the famous local food outlets. I must confess that some of us who could not always afford such goodies had come to look forward to Denver’s visit every Friday, because Tash was generous enough to invite her co-workers to tuck in.
Like me, Denver loved fishing, and after chatting to his wife he always had time to discuss fishing expeditions with me before leaving.
Coming from landlocked Zimbabwe, I had not fished in the sea, and Denver planned to take me along with him for my first fishing expedition at sea the next time he had time over a weekend.
Unfortunately this was not to be as Denver’s life was cut short before he could fulfil his promise.
I was devastated when I learnt that Denver had died in a car accident.
I cannot even imagine how devastating this must have been for his beloved Tash, who would talk openly about how much she loved him.
I will never forget the helpless figure Tash cut at Denver’s funeral in Durban, how often she passed out and had to be resuscitated with cold water and fanning.
I am not sure how Tash got the idea to form an organisation to try to share with women who found themselves in a similar situation after losing their loved ones. All I can say is that this idea has been well-received by the scores of women who testify about their situations in Widow Without.
The book describes the utter hopelessness that overwhelms women after losing their spouses, and the crushing fear that envelops them when they realise that the person they loved more than any-thing else in the world is not there any more and never will be, and that they have to face the uncertainties of life by themselves.
The book talks about the struggle widows encounter in trying to move forward as the mind keeps taking them back to the fateful day when their loved one was snatched from them.
Tash points out that it is only when they choose to change their perspective and do a complete mind-shift from the dark space they find themselves in, and choose to respond to life in a way that pushes them forward, that widows can start to lead a normal life again.
“Only you are responsible for the choices you make and how you want to go forward, and only you can choose to make your life count,” Tash writes.
“I learned that there are thousands of people out there who go through exactly the same things I went through, who also know the pain, the hurt and the longing, but what I learned most importantly is that life is so short and unless I started choosing how to respond to the choices which choose me in a positive way, I would never define the context of my life properly in the way it should be.”
Most of the women who gave their testimonies in Widow Without agreed that one of the most difficult things was knowing how to tell their young children that their daddy was gone for ever.
Most confessed that at some stage they were extremely angry with God, repeatedly asking Him: “Why me?”
One widow said that at first she could not understand how life could be so unfair, that there were many miserable marriages in the world where wives were being beaten and abused, or where husbands and wives were having extramarital affairs, “but God chose to destroy my perfect life”.
One thing all widows seem to agree on is that life is not fair, but that despite this at some stage one has to move on.
One widow, Lorna Moodley, nicely summed it up when she said she lived by the motto: “Those who stare at the past have their backs turned towards the future.”
Tash’s book is a good read not only for widows, but for any woman and man as anyone can lose their partner.
As one woman testified, through hearing the stories of other widows she realised that there were people who were in situations far worse than hers, but had been able to move on.