Whole Again

By Joyce Brothers As told to Laura Koss-Feder

I met my husband Milt in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. His family always went there in the summers, and my family always went in the winters. But one fall we were both there at the same time. I was upstairs in our house, reading and blowing my nose from a heavy cold, and my little sister came up to me and said,

"I met the man you're going to marry." I said, as you say to little sisters, "Buzz off, kid." "No," she said. "You've got to believe me." So I put on a kerchief, blew my nose, walked downstairs, and I knew the moment I saw him that I would marry him. It was not until 33 years later that I learned he knew the same thing at the same moment. I found out on a TV game show called Tattletales that we appeared on. He fell in love with me at first sight as well.

Milt passed away in 1989. We were married for 39 years. He was ill for two years with bladder cancer and then bowel cancer. He was originally given three months to live, and he just would not accept this. He wanted to live. At the very end, I called his pain specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. She said, "I can't help him unless he comes into the hospital." Even after all these years I still cry when I think about it--he wanted life so much that he was willing to go back into the hospital. There just wasn't anything we could do.

I learned then that psychologists don't do any better with grief than anybody else does. I'd think to myself, "Why did you leave me? Why do I have to be the one who grieves? Why couldn't I have died and you be the one who grieves?" That anger makes no sense at all, because you know that person didn't want to leave you. I'd go on an airplane to give a lecture, and I wasn't afraid, because I wanted it to crash. For about a year, I ate over the sink. That's what you do when you grieve. It's not worth sitting down and setting the table. After all, I had always lived with somebody. When I was a kid, I lived with my family. When I was older, I lived with roommates. Then I got married. I never lived by myself.

And then I somehow realized that I was a whole person, not a piece of a person. I was not going to eat over the sink for the rest of my life. This was a surprise for me. I had always thought of myself as a piece of something else or half of something. I had really thought that when I lost Milt I would fall apart. But I didn't. I realized that I could be alone. I now took care of me. I'd eat what I wanted to eat. I'd buy veal chops, which Milt wasn't fond of. I'd sleep when I wanted to sleep. I had always put others ahead ofme; I never put myself first. This was now a different attitude for me. I guess you find things inyourself that you never knew existed.

Work became more meaningful to me. Being able to help other people became more central to my life. I could now make my own schedule and not fit into anyone else's. I took more speaking engagements. I did movies that I hadn't done before--fun stuff, like Spy Hard with Leslie Nielsen, in which I beat up Hulk Hogan.

I also did more traveling. When you're not taking care of anybody but yourself, you have a lot of time on your hands. And Milt didn't like to travel. I went with my family--my daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren--to Malaysia, where I gave speeches to physicians and students. We took a side trip to Borneo and visited headhunters, who were no longer permitted to hunt heads. They brought out their little shrunken heads to show us. This was such an adventure. We went to Myanmar and Thailand as a family. I also began taking my grandkids, one at a time, on trips. We've been to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy.

I now look forward to getting up in the morning, which I didn't think I'd ever do. Every day is different, like an adventure. It's like going fishing--you never know what you're going to catch. --As told to Laura Koss-Feder