Twenty years after being widowed - I still felt married, until I heard a sermon on singleness

Anne Olivant was sadly widowed in her 50s, here she reflects on what it is to be single again after years of marriage.

I was widowed in my early fifties, but for more than twenty years I’ve always “felt married”. Until a recent church service dedicated to singleness made me think. On the day my husband died our curate – a semi-retired priest, turned up unannounced, carrying a plastic supermarket bag.  He took in the scene: four young men in shock and their wretched, stricken mother desparate for comforting words from God.

He dumped the bag. Then he spoke to them: “When your mother married she and your father became one. She’s just had half of her ripped away and that’s why she’s like this.” He prayed for me, picked up the bag and left. I never knew what was in it: he was not a person to do shopping but would always have a well worn – tatty even - bible about him. I guess it was that.