Another widow book. The first 50 pages of the 400 page book told the story of her husband's illness,
hospitalization, and death. Most interesting since he went to the hospital at her insistance for what turned out to be pneumonia, then died of a hospital-borne infection. She suffered through regrets of having taken him to the hospital. I despaired because she did not stay with him all the time. (A hospital is no place to be left alone.) Then there was 250 pages of moaning and medication. The last 100 pages up-ed my rating because of the review of their marriage. I tried to forgive her for her bad words for the year she lived in Beaumont when her husband taught at Lamar Tech. That is not my favorite part of Texas either. Her husband loved gardening and their home in Princeton, New Jersey,
where she taught, had many windows (a super plus). Her husband once said, "It's very hard to get anything done in this house, with so much happening outside our windows." Someone said about her husband: "In these uncivil times, he was a true gentleman...It was actually soothing to talk with him." I rather liked him -- as did his widow. She felt his rejection of the faith of his childhood was a good move; I regretted that loss. The emotional healing for the widow came when she began working in his garden. Lots of good quotes and 'dictionary' words. She said of the Department of Motor Vehicles: "This is a place of utter expediency, soulless and grim."