Think About It: Talking and not being heard

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026

By Bertha Cooper

for the Sequim Gazette

My prediction is readers will have differing expectations of this column based on the headline. Will Bertha go again into political deafness or to difficulties in couples’ communication or even speaking without a microphone?

Good guesses all but not where I am going. I am exploring one of the consequences of living alone.

I am experiencing living alone, something I never sought. Although as I have written before, I expected I would have some time living alone late in life since my husband Paul was years older than I.

Well into the time following his death and the reality of life without him set in, I realized living alone for any length of time was a new experience for me.

Before I go further I must for the sake of my relationship with Jolie, aka Crabby Cat, mention that I share the home with her and at least 10 of her stuffed toys left on the floor wherever and whenever she tires of them.

Besides Jolie and a brief time in college when I did not have a roommate, I have always lived with someone.

Of course, I lived with my parents and brother through college and with spouses (I married twice) with a brief episode of living on my own in an apartment.

That fact jars me in an unexpected way. I do not miss having someone with me. Of course, I miss Paul and wish he was here with me every day whether in another room doing his work or next to me while we eat dinner.

Now I am comforted by his spirit that I carry with me after 54 years of marriage.

I am still alone.

Remembering

How much and how do we widows and widowers think we will be impacted by the loss of a longtime partner that results in our living alone? We expect grief, longing and loneliness.

Do we expect forgetfulness?

I did not.

I remember my dad saying after my mom died how much he missed her memory for everything, especially dates for outings. Of course, that meant he did not have to remember because she would remind him.

That is until the day she got tired of her role as date and time monitor. He caught on amazingly quickly given how long he had depended on her reminders. Still, they talked. They lived a few more years, always talking about their activities and plans with each other.

Keeping each other informed was an important function for another reason: they were helping each other remember.

The point of an article I read long ago to provide a citation stuck with me. The author wrote how talking with another person about the time and place of future appointments was a factor in remembering the appointment without having to look it up.

I know that nowadays without my partner, I go to my calendar much more to confirm appointments than I ever did when Paul was alive. I learned early on when I forgot an appointment for a massage that I needed a new way to cue my memory of time commitments.

Ever since, I have included checking and double checking my calendar each morning. Of course, that system depends on keeping my calendar up to date and me remembering to check. So, I also put a note of some future commitments on the refrigerator.

Writing this column is a tool for helping me remember but also a gift in the journey of making friends with my aging self. Allowing myself to age helps me pay attention to the right things — family, friends, cats, home and of course writing.

Instead of trying to be young or what I think is young, I try to graciously accept the changes. Sometimes that even works.

However, acceptance does not mean complacency any more than stiff joints means stop moving. We must use and flex memory just as we move and flex joints to keep aging joints limber.

Acceptance does not make me like the changing dynamic of my memory. Something about a decline in memory threatens my very survival even though I know changes occur naturally with aging.

I know we aging folk need to allow our brains more time to process information. Information may take longer to process and regurgitate when needed but we do it.

Talking about it with your partner helps you retain the information.

It is a favor we do with and for each other.

Those end-of-day conversations help us both unload the struggles and successes of the day and retain the information that will help us tomorrow.

We need those people who are either very interested in what we have to say or are great at pretending to listen and, yes, comment and support.

We need to be those people for another or others.

They are to be cherished. We miss them when they are gone.

Remembering is important and more complicated for me without my favorite partner in life.

The sadness of it all is I no longer have Paul, the partner who helped me remember and so much more — the partner I will never forget.