"Like marriage, widowhood is for life."
Someone asked me why I almost always wore black. I hesitated to answer; the person is not Portuguese and wouldn't understand. I said I've always liked darker clothes, gray and black. It's not a lie; I've always had that preference, perhaps to contrast with the white clothes of my profession. But lately, there's another reason: widowhood. Although I don't have enough black clothes for every occasion, I like to wear them when possible.
The quote in the epigraph explains it. I read this sentence in a report on those Portuguese widows in mourning, dressed in black, for the rest of their lives [1]. It is a sentence without meandering, without metaphors, without concessions, neither permission for intrusions, and without antediluvian Freudian reveries. It is the naked truth. For me, that's how it is. "Like marriage, widowhood is for life."
The widows interviewed lost their husbands at sea: they were fishermen. Some of these women say, in a questioning tone, whether they would bear it if someone else imposed conditions on them in their daily lives—pure rhetoric, so as not to appear saccharine, they want to be tough; but I know that the reason is the irreplaceable love for their deceased husbands. Others confess the feeling that always accompanies them, with the portraits of their men, which “sway on their chests... drawn together by golden threads.”
My husband had a passion for the sea, for sailing. Not by profession, but he was a man of the sea. He once said that it would be a happy death to die at sea.
I am like these widows, my part of Portuguese DNA has prevailed 😊 — portuguesa com certeza (Song that says "a Portuguese house, for sure"). I like to wear black clothes and the portrait of my husband also swings on my chest, brought closer by a golden thread. I identify myself with these fishermen's widows. My love is still present in me [2], and it will always be like this.
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[2] Uma só carne
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