Defined...

I have this giant dictionary...Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th edition.  My mom gave it to me in 1990 before I went to college.  My Dad gave my Mom a dictionary before she went to college too...so it's sort of a tradition for the teachers in my family....

I love my dictionary...because I can't spell.  I've always been bad at it...ask my students...ask my former teachers.  My 3rd grade teacher taught me this great trick...after you look up a word, write it on the inside cover of the dictionary.   It makes it much easier to find words you never spell correctly.

Susan hated dictionaries.  She could never understand the need...she could spell.  I kept my dictionary in our pantry...she hated that too.  It took up too much space.  I tried to explain my need to look up words, but it basically came down to the fact that I didn't want to appear to be an idiot when I wrote an e-mail.

There is something else about dictionaries though...they really aren't for spelling.  If you don't know how to spell a word, how do you look it up?  I love it when teachers tell kids to go look it up...imagine that poor kid starting with the first letter of giraffe and scanning every page in the "G's" because he didn't know what the next letter was going to be.

Dictionaries are for definitions and in some cases settling bets.  

No way does frigate mean boat.  Look it up.  Frigate: a fast, medium sized warship of the 18th and early 19th centuries.  

Dictionaries are the ultimate authority.  We all believe that they can't be wrong...I don't know why, but teachers treat dictionaries the way the Pope treats the bible.   So being a teacher, I looked my new self up...

wid•ower n. [[ME widewer, extended < wedew, widower <OE widewa, masc. of widewe, WIDOW]] a man who has outlived the woman to whom he is married at the time of her death; esp., such a man has not remarried -wid´•ower•hood´n.

Wow...that sucks.  I was expecting more.  I'm not sure I agree, but I don't really know how to define myself now and that is...what the DICTIONARY says.  

So what is a widower?  I had a much different picture 10 weeks ago.  How do I act?  How do I behave? Am I allowed to laugh?  Can I watch TV?  What if I feel like dancing?  

The bigger problem is that it isn't just dictionaries that want to define me.  People have perceptions, ideas, thoughts, guidelines and rules.  These may be conscious or unconscious, but they are there.  Stop and ask yourself what a widow or widower is and then watch this...

My other conflict with that definition is the "if such a man has not remarried" part.  So if I was actually lucky enough to find love again, I'm no longer a widower?  Webster acts like any hope for my future erases my past...erases the loss of Susan from my life by definition. I will always be a widower.  It's more than a definition, it's an experience, it's a journey, it's my reality...

Susan will always be a part of me...she will always be talked of...thought of...and loved by me.  Nothing will change that.  I love her always and forever.

This was not our choice.  It does not end our love.  I'm still here and I'm still in love with Susan.  Her death didn't kill my love.  So our relationship continues whether Webster likes it or not...

I'm starting to understand why Susan hated dictionaries...