The best books by women about grieving the loss of a quirky marriage partner

In their 50s, Raynor and Moth Winn suddenly lost their Welsh farm, home, and livelihood. Simultaneously, they were given Moth’s fatal diagnosis of a rare degenerative disease. Deeply in love for 32 years, this unconventional couple faced the loss of everything they’d loved together, including Moth’s life. While Raynor and Moth chose to walk the 630-mile West Coast Path in the south of England, my husband of 37 years and I traveled England and Europe in search of a place that spoke to the poetic longings of our souls. When my husband’s health also disintegrated, I needed the same resilience and courage I found in Raynor and Moth. Their uncommon commitment to ignore doctor’s advice in exchange for adhering to their beliefs was confirmation and support for me as I reviewed the unconventional decisions we made in Philip’s final years. The love that continues after death confirms the commitment of a lifetime.

As I entered the strange new territory of grief and a solitary life after 37 years of an unconventional marriage, I found myself looking for solace from authors who could show me the way forward. Martha Cooley’s retreat to a small, medieval Italian village brought the first tentative smiles to my early months of grieving. My husband and I shared a love of Europe and stayed in our own medieval village in Tuscany just a few years before he died. Cooley used her retreat to deal consciously but gently with the many deaths she’d faced over a traumatic ten years, as well as the impending death of her mother. Her reflections related to mortality and carrying on after the loss of loved ones were a comfort as I began to confront the uncomfortable challenge of stepping into a new life without my husband and best friend. 

Unorthodox ways of living and loving appeal to me… in literature and in life. When I found Abigail Thomas in the year following my husband’s death, I felt I’d found a new friend. Thomas’s husband’s brain damage following an accident must have been a nightmare. Living for years with his rage and cognitive lapses must have taken every bit of her courage and resilience. When he died, Thomas was forced, as I was, to pick up and carry on with her life. Is there to be pleasure again? Or has this lifetime’s allotment of joy been used up? These were questions she and I shared. Thomas begins to find her way back via the little joys found with dogs, friends, and cooking (to name a few). Her humor and quirkiness blended with honesty helped me lift myself off the couch, and slowly, gently move forward into my new life.

Without Reservations gave me hope following the death of my beloved husband of 37 years. Living with his unique and nontraditional worldview, I’d grown into and inhabited a wider, less conventional way of being than my suburban middle-class upbringing had prepared me for. But once he was gone, what and who was I going to be? Steinbach’s travelogue goes to many of the places my husband and I traveled in England and Europe, and that brought reminiscences of great pleasure. But it was her inner journeying in search of her soul that gave me the courage to embark on the inner travels toward self-discovery and the independence I faced in a newly widowed existence.

Even though the marriage in Oh William! ends in divorce while my marriage ended (without my consent) in my husband’s untimely death, the book brought me back to the unconventional nature of my marriage. Elizabeth Strout’s uncanny ability to say much in a single sentence had me traveling back in time and heart to the many moments that made our marriage. The tendernesses and fears, the deep trust and insecurities that quietly but forcefully bound us together made up the subtle mysteries of our uncommon relationship. What makes people move apart yet remain forever close, as in Lucy Barton and her ex-husband, William, or what holds two people together when there are many factors that might drive them apart, as in my marriage? These questions made reading this book a thought-provoking and enriching experience.