Meeting someone for the first time since my husband’s death is difficult. There are two groups: those who know about Robert’s death but haven’t seen me, and those who have no idea. I choose my version of the news carefully to avoid questions. But what can you expect when a seemingly healthy man who just turned 50 dies suddenly?
“How are you doing?” my periodontist asks.
My emotions get the better of me and I can feel my face scrunch up ugly, tears seeping out of the corners of my eyes. But the tears are running up, toward my scalp, because I’m fully reclined in a dentist’s chair. I can’t manage words, so I shake my head up and down as if to communicate, “I’m O.K.,” the inability to say so making it obvious that I’m not.
If he’d asked how Robert died, I’d have faced a split-second decision: Do I acknowledge that Robert died of alcoholic hepatitis, or lie?
[For more of this story, written by Paula Ganzi Licata, go to http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...g-an-alcoholic/?_r=0]
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