Sex After Loss: A Widow’s Guide, Year 1

Almost immediately following my life partner’s demise from a harrowing journey with cancer — during which we were also able to revel in five months of remission by checking items off of our family “bucket list” before the cancer returned in his liver — I felt hungry for a vibrant sexual encounter.

More than anything, I needed to be held in strong arms — this was my grandest fantasy, especially after 18 months of an intense cancer journey that included six chemotherapy sessions and 48 upper head and neck radiation treatments that rendered my partner unable to swallow and needing a gastro-intestinal tube placed directly into his stomach.

I write and talk about this because it remains taboo for a widow to want sex, as though this biological necessity has anything to do with the depth of love someone feels for another person. Love and sex can be two separate things, and me loving myself means my tending to all of my needs.

Chemotherapy zaps a person’s sex drive so even though Burt had been granted remission, he had no desire to engage sexually in the seven months between when he was granted remission and when he died. Burt and I both agreed that sex is natural — like breathing. He wouldn’t take personally my needing to get this need met. And, my having sex with someone else would never diminish the love I feel for Burt or the relationship we shared.

But, actually getting laid has been much harder than I remembered. It has been a humbling…