Reminders, labels and words

There are reminders everywhere if you’re looking for them. But if you’re not, and you genuinely want to just get on with it (whatever it may be) without the emotion of remembering, then that’s possible too. To a point.

Some reminders speak louder than others and won’t be quietened. For me recently, it’s filling out forms. You need to fill out a ridiculous number of forms when you have a 7 and a 10 year old. Not to mention forms I’ve had to fill out about myself for medical stuff and the like…

I HATE the next of kin and emergency contact fields.

I particularly don’t like the ‘Parent 2’ field that I sometimes see. I don’t want to write ‘NA’. I want a better label to stick up their box.

Problem is, the only one that comes to mind is ‘widower’. It’s an explanation. A reason. Sort of says ‘leave me alone’. Perhaps I should write it in parenthesis beside ‘NA’?

Now generally speaking in not really a hater. But here’s hate number 2…

I HATE the word ‘widower’.

A gardener gardens, a swimmer swims, a writer writes. But a widower widows?

Widow is just as bad. The masculine form feels like an afterthought. ‘Crap what are we going to use to distinguish men?’ ‘Just add an er, she’ll be right.’ If you start with a rubbish word and add ‘er’ you’ve still got a rubbish word.

It’s not just an issue with filling out forms either. Perhaps it was less obvious pre the  inter web, but now this group that needs a better label to use in social media than widow/widower.

But what label to use? They don’t give you many options. Married is wrong (as I wrote this I was prompted to look at my Facebook profile – sure enough it said married… it now says widowed… urrrrhhh). Single is technically correct too, but feels like it implies cutting a cord I’m not sure I’m ready to cut. No, there needs to be a better word. Something like a:  “my-wife-is-dead-I-miss-her-and-am-lonely-but-am-ok-and-theres-no-need-to-worry-about-me-because-I-know-life-can-still-be-good” kind of word… Suggestions?