During lunch at a printing workshop I found myself sitting with a stranger, eating a sandwich and indulging in small talk. Because of the pandemic, even two years after my husband’s death I had little practice in mentioning him in conversation to people who didn’t know the whole story already.
Until then I had simply said ‘my husband’ when talking about him, and let people assume, reasonably, that he was alive. But this felt uncomfortable, and dealing with any need for clarification as the conversation carried on was even worse. The alternatives, to explain from the start that my husband was dead, or to avoid talking about him altogether, were both undesirable to me: I don’t want to overshare, but I do want to share what comes naturally.
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