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Loving each other as we part: "I am kicked out like a teenager, when I am 77 years old"

First day

I am a widower and have been retired for ten years. I had known my wife since the age of 4, we had grown up together. Eighteen months of cancer, and I find myself all alone at breakfast with no one to talk to about the day ahead. One of my daughters also died in a car accident twenty years ago. I'm a little depressed, not prepared to live alone.

So I get involved in the non-profit world, to keep myself busy and not face my loneliness too much. I start helping migrants, I spend nearly eighty hours a week helping them fill out their administrative files. An obvious thing for me: my father was Jewish, he suffered during the war. And I was a seismologist, I traveled a lot. Migration is really where the most discriminated against find themselves.

Within the association, the good conscience of volunteers can overshadow their reasoning. But there is “her”, for whom things seem more adjusted. I meet her during reception sessions during which we audition people. I am behind my table, it is not very far from me. I observe her, she is prettier than the average ladies of her age, livelier and more dolled up too. She reacts differently to interviews, more understanding: she is a psychiatrist.

Love each other as we part:

One Saturday, I'm on the street, on my bike, my basket full of groceries I've done for dinner that I'm organizing at my house that evening. When you are widowed, sociability is complicated, because people are used to couple interactions. And suddenly, you are no longer two while they continue to work in pairs. I expected these friends to be supportive in my bereavement, I realized that the opposite was happening, that it was up to me to rebuild social ties and reassure them about my new status.

On this corner of the sidewalk, I meet her. I say hello to him, we talk. She has time to tell me that she lives alone, that she has been divorced twice and that she is happy to finally be able to breathe and do what she wants to do. I invite him to come and have dinner at home with my guests. I am not bothered by her need for independence, I imagine that after two husbands she needs to be free, and that is understandable.

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