Quick Take
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach still remains shaky, five months after suddenly losing her husband to cancer. Here, she remembers the stunning 1998 death of NBC anchor Katie Couric’s husband, Jay Monahan, 42, and how graciously and privately Katie handled it. She’s trying to absorb the lessons.
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My friend Lindsey is coming over tonight for dinner. It won’t be fancy. I have become pretty good at enhancing frozen things from Trader Joe’s that seem to satisfy us both.
Sometimes my friend Becky joins us. Sometimes, it is just Becky, while Lindsey, feeling the weight of loss, stays home. We have known each other for decades. Our daughters grew up together. Our husbands were friends. Both Becky and Lindsey lost their husbands in the past year. Lindsey’s husband, Tom, died just three weeks before my husband, Michael.
We gather, fix a cocktail and then look at each other in disbelief. We are each trying to find our way and I am so grateful to have these two remarkable, brave, heartbroken women by my side.
We are newly hatched widows, our feathers still wet. Sunlight hurts our eyes. We blink while we try to identify our new surroundings.
We congratulate each other when we accomplish something. We don’t judge if one of us simply spends the day in pajamas, vowing to do better the next day.
We hold each other’s hands both literally and figuratively. I wonder if we should get tattoos or matching T-shirts that would show the world what we are dealing with every day while out in the bright sunlight which exposes all of our emotional cracks.
I used to think, while watching old movies or reading novels taking place in the last century where women donned black “widows weeds,” that wearing garments the color of midnight for a full year following a death was overly dramatic. I mean, how was one to ever feel better while dressed head to toe in such a dark, somber fashion? But now I get it.
I now understand the old tradition as a wonderful way to project to the world our fragile emotions.
“Please be careful with me, I am trying.”
I have always been interested in the ways we all deal with the impossible when it comes to losing a person you believed you could never live without.
Years ago, when my work day began with an alarm at 6:30 a.m. after a quick shower, after pouring myself a mug of coffee and sitting down with a bowl of cereal, I would turn on NBC’s “Today” show with Katie Couric and the rest of the “Today” family. She seemed so relatable. So upbeat. So perky. For years this was my routine. She was a bright light. And then her husband, Jay Monahan, was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 42. And it was bad. And after nine months, in January 1998, he died. And Katie went on a leave of absence.
I worried about her every day. I wondered how or if she could survive this monumental loss. How she would care for her two young kids. She was gone for weeks. Then an announcement was made telling the viewers she would be coming back the next Monday.
I was on the edge of my seat. I wanted to see if there was anything left of that vibrant, happy woman.
She didn’t show. It was too soon for the bright lights and cameras and people.
Her feathers were still wet. The bright lights hurt her eyes. But then, a few days later, she returned. She sat at her desk, with her coffee mug and co host Matt Lauer next to her and thanked everyone. Matt was fired in 2017 for inappropriate sexual conduct, which made so many of us cringe and wonder what we had missed. But at the time, we knew nothing.
Katie had survived the unsurvivable.
Just by sitting there, she taught the world a lesson in strength and courage. She showed me how one carries on when one has no other option. I think of her often.
A few months later, I wrote a piece about her loss and how it had affected me in ways I had not expected. The column ran in the Chicago Tribune. A friend of Katie’s showed it to her. I was invited to visit her on the set of the morning show. I was in New York City anyway, so it was an easy yes.
I was led through a side door at NBC and then down a hall and into a room with cables strewn on the floor and people gathering in small groups waiting for the show to begin. I was introduced to Katie and she invited me to spend the morning with her. So I did. She was sure-footed. She was upbeat. She was sharp in an interview she did and then when it was all over, she hugged me and asked if I wanted a picture with her.
I wish I knew where that picture is now. I wish I could speak to her now. Ask her if she could possibly pinpoint the turning point in her grief. Can she recall the first time she slept through the night? Or the first full day where thoughts of her late husband didn’t color everything. Didn’t block out the sun.
I know she has built a new life with a new husband and she looks happy. But the difference between Katie and Lindsey and Becky and I is that we are in the later years in our lives. I have no expectations when it comes to romance or replacing Michael. Neither do my friends.
But we are supporting one another just as Katie’s work family supported her. We are sitting on the couch or in my cushy orange chairs, holding hands while our feathers dry.
We are hoping someday to be able to fly.