Writer and poet Judith Viorst, who is now in her nineties, joins Zibby to discuss MAKING THE BEST OF WHAT’S LEFT: When You’re Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered, a funny and poignant reflection on aging, widowhood, and the lessons she’s learned since losing her husband of over sixty years. With her trademark wit, wisdom, and unflinching eye for the agonies and absurdities of ordinary family life, Judith talks about life’s later chapter (the “Final Fifth”), touching on grief, community, and rediscovering identity beyond being a wife. She also reads from her devastatingly tender poem, “Stop Being Dead.”

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Judy. Thank you for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about making the best of what's left when you're too old. To get the chairs reupholstered. Congratulations. 

Judith: Thank you. Thank you. 

Zibby: You wrote in such a funny and moving and also sad way about the loss of your husband in this book and what it means to be older and what life looks like when you leave your home and so much else.

Tell me about your decision to write this particular book and having read Nearing 90, I was eagerly looking forward to this installment, so thank you for writing it. 

Judith: I tend to be writing about where I am in my life, and this was certainly a major where I am in my life. I've been married for over 60 years to Milton, knew him when he was 19 and I was 18.

So he is been in my life practically my whole life and his loss and moving to a retirement community and starting to acquire a. List of specialists, every kind longer than my lifespan got me thinking about how do we manage at this time of life how do we redefine happiness and negotiate loneliness?

And when our arguments with the kids, when they want us to give up our car keys. 

Zibby: I am profoundly sorry for your loss, and I appreciate all of what you wrote. Can I read the poem in this book called Stop Being Dead? Yes, please. Okay, so this is a poem you wrote about Milton, stop being dead. I have these conversations with my husband.

I'm hoping that he's hearing what I've said for though I know he died this past December. I keep on telling him, stop being dead. You've never been a stickler for the rules. Dear, you've crossed some lines and some were really red. Obedience is not among your virtues, so stop, obeying. Just stop being dead.

I need you sitting at our kitchen table. I need you lying next to me in bed. I need you fixing our damn circuit breakers. I need you. Could you please stop being dead? It's only you for whom I'm lonely. I won't take any substitutes instead. Who knew? You'd be completely irreplaceable. Come back to me. Come back.

Stop being dead. Oh, it makes me wanna cry. 

Judith: Sometimes it makes me wanna cry too, but it also evokes a lot of memories of this vital, vigorous, super opinionated man who I live with and love for so many years. 

Zibby: I. I think so many people fear that this will happen. And you joke about it early in the book, you know he wasn't supposed to die first, right?

Absolutely not. So now that this is the way things have played out, would you ever go back and do anything differently and would you tell other people, like what, how do you live life when there's. So much uncertainty now that you know where you've ended up, so to speak. 

Judith: The main thing I would like to have done differently has not been such an absolute dummy about of the details of practical life, anything that Milton was in charge of him be totally in charge of. I did not know how to do taxes, how to get a car. Inspected, where the switch was when there was a water break and water was dripping down and I and I didn't know how to turn it off. It's nice to be taken care of and have your husband and you split the chores, but believe me, life is a lot easier if you if you know where the switches to turn off the water and, on, on, on a less pragmatic note. I was pretty good at telling him I loved him and fairly good at saying I was sorry when I screwed up in some way. But I could have been better. I think we all could have, anytime we felt, and I love you, we should just say it. 

Don't say it.

Just say it. And and it probably wouldn't kill us if we all just say more, I'm sorrys. 

I, I. If I went back, I think I'd be a better person. Think so.

Zibby: I think we all probably would be, can I read just one more paragraph from what's left? 

Judith: Please do. 

Zibby: Okay. You wrote, I don't wanna flunk old age.

I. I really wanna be good at old age if they're giving out grades for old age, I want an a plus, but we won't be good at old age until we figured out what's left after we've dealt with a host of cascading losses, and perhaps among these losses, the most difficult for us is the death of a husband or wife who, for better and worse has been part of our life for most of our lifetime.

I think we need a book entitled Preparations For Widowhood and we need to read it before our husband dies. We also have plenty to learn from those who are widowed. Much of it obvious, some of it, a warning word to the wise that such and such should be done or said or done right now while he's alive, because later is non-negotiable too late. Having some separate interests, some separate friendships, some separate sense of who we are, when who we are is not a part of a pair, can help to ease the separateness of widowhood, and we shouldn't wait till his death to figure out how to be a person, not only a wife. Do you feel like you now are being not only a wife, you have noticed some changes since then?

Judith: Yes. A lot. A lot of changes. There is something about having this other presence in your life? Who was I? I once wrote a poem and said, yeah, what's the secret of a long marriage? No mystery. It's my habit and my history. He was my habit and my history. We shared so much. Who else are you gonna lie in bed with at night and talk about all the details and wonders of your children.

There's nobody as interested in that as your own husband and, you continue with life. I know a lot of women who have done remarkably well and I think I'm doing pretty well with without the man we love with us anymore, but it is, and some of these women have even managed to have a new relationship, have even managed to take off their clothes in front of a new man, which is not easy at a certain age, and yet there is this absence of this person you've been connected to for such, such a long time. So you have both, you. You also flourish in certain ways. I, I've seen people really, some of them go on to, to new activities and new relationships of friendship and of studies or a poetry group or whatever.

I'm not seeing a lot of women turning into wilted flowers after their husbands die. They have to work at it. You have to work at it. 

Zibby: How do you feel about death? 

Judith: I don't like it Zibby. I think it's a really dumb idea. 

Zibby: Agreed. 

Judith: I don't understand why they didn't come up with a better option, but I think about it a lot and I think about people I love who have died and I think there is something to be said about continuing relationships in a way after someone has died. Remembering them. Remembering them maybe in a slightly different way as you've gotten older and understood new things. I just said, I just went to New York three days ago to say goodbye to a very beloved old. Friend of mine, we met when our kids were five years old.

Oh. And just held her hand and said goodbye to her. And I think that's a good thing to do too, if you can do that. 

Zibby: Aw, it's so sad. Are you alright not to be somber on this? It's like the weather day is beautiful and it's all you know, happy and whatever. So I don't mean to bring you down with these discussions about death, but are you afraid of death yourself for you?

Judith: Oh, I think like a lot of people, we've all come to the conclusion that we're not afraid of death as much as we're afraid of dying. 

We want wanna have a a hospice kind of death, a death that is the composed of some level of dignity and a lot of level of pain free. 

Zibby: That makes sense. Ugh. Tell me about the power of community and how important it is.

I know you, you already touched on this, and, but having people that you care about and who are there at any stage, tell me about that and maybe a close friend who's really helped you along the way. 

Judith: Yeah I think community is absolutely. Central to happiness. When you get married to somebody, your marriage is not gonna work out.

If you expect that one person to be everything and be interested in everything that you care about, that that's why the universe invented friendships and family. And community just helps you in, you, you call up, you're in a bad mood, and get somebody to talk you out of it or convince you that this disastrous screw up that you recently engaged in is really not the end of the world after all.

Who can bring some laughter into your life where you're feeling glum and who can hold your hand and be sad with you, and you need that. There is a tremendously warm and welcoming community here where I live in this retirement community. Amazing to me that at this late stage in life, I could even make new friends and people that I had never met before and found a very meaningful connections 

Zibby: with. That's amazing. 

Judith: Gets you through the day, gets you through the night. 

Zibby: Very true. Your career as a writer is so amazing, right? You just are open and funny and vulnerable, and you have written throughout life and taken the readership along with you. How do you do that?

Like how can other people emulate what you've done from writing children's books to writing funny poems, to writing books for grownups and all of that. Like, when did you know you were a writer and how did you keep it going for, so long and just like morphing when you needed to and all of that.

Judith: Oh, Zibby, I, I'm one of these people who wanted to be a writer. My, my whole life I was sending stuff out to my mother's women's magazine, literally when I was seven, eight years old. I think I was still doing printing, not writing, not cursive, and, because my mother's favorite poem was Annabelle Lee about the Maiden and a set book, or Down By the Sea at Dead Maiden.

I thought that there had to be a dead body in every poem I wrote. So my first poem was an O to my dead mother and father, both alive at the time, and quite a little nervous. Why don't you go out and roller skate and forget that morbid stuff? And I just. I set this stuff out. I was sending writing out until I was well into my thirties without one single word ever being published.

But I, I didn't know how to not write. I didn't know how to express who I was and how I felt. Write writing wasn't an assignment I gave myself or a career choice. It chose me. I. 

Zibby: And how did you, even though you say you just kept writing, you can keep writing, but decide not to publish or not to deal with the whole industry or rejection or whatever.

Did you just know deep down that this is what you were meant to do and you were willing to put up with whatever? 

Judith: I, again I was once asked by somebody after I'd given a talk about. She said I wanna be a writer like you, but I can't stand rejection. I said, get another career because you're gonna, you're gonna have to stand a lot of rejection.

So I just kept on sending out and, one thing led to another, and. By some miracle. I wound up finally having poems published in New York Magazine, and my life changed, but it took me a very long time to get to that. And I just plugged away. I wrote, I sent out, I got back or totally ignored and I needed to write.

So I have not if you don't need to write and you can't stand rejection, really, take up tap dancing. 

Zibby: Yeah. Big market for tap dancing. Very reliable choice there. Good. Were you surprised by the success and longevity of Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no.

Good, very bad day. I, 

Judith: I I real, I really was because, I had my Alexander and I, and I. I read him this story when it was still in manuscript form and, thinking, since he had a lot more than a share of bad days, I thought I, I would cheer him up by writing this about kid had a bad day and he hated the book.

He absolutely hated it. He said, why are you giving me a bad day? Why don't you give one to Nick? Why don't you give one to Tony? Why me? Why me? He really was, this was not working out the way I had hoped it was. And I said to him that we could change it to Stanley in the terrible, horrible, or Walter in the terrible, horrible.

But then this is me being totally manipulative, balmy, won, and great big letters in the front of the book. He said, keep it Alexander. And the subsequent success of it was an absolute amazement to me. It was actually. Turned down by the publisher I submitted to, and who I figured was gonna take it 'cause she had taken two other of my books.

And I have to say, as a result of all of its success, I have a very immature attitude, which goes like this. Yang. Yeah. 

Zibby: Oh, I love that. I love that so much. What's the thing that makes you the happiest when you wake up each day and get going? What do you write still every day? Does that still make you happy?

Is there something else you've started at? What makes you happy every day? 

Judith: What makes me happy every day? This absolute sinful beginning of my day, which is. Also, I have to say, I feel as if I'm listing all of my, IM maturities is a large glass, which is basically half chocolate Hershey's syrup and half milk breakfast every morning.

A large glass of berry chocolatey chocolate milk, and that's whoop, gets right in right into the day. I don't necessarily write every day, but when I'm working on something and in the middle of it, I can get. I can get so engrossed. I have my chocolate milk. I have not brushed my teeth.

I am still in my nightgown. And I go to my desk and I say to myself, don't start, but I start. And then it can be two o'clock before I'm outta my nightgown. And when writing is going and you're just flying along, even though you know you're putting a lot of stuff in the trash basket it's a pretty exhilarating feeling.

Zibby: Wow. I love that. A great image. I have to say, my grandmother made hot cocoa for breakfast every single day. She did it with Hershey's powder or the Nestle Yeah, the Hershey's powder. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe this is the secret to life. Get a little more chocolate. 

Judith: Absolutely. 

Zibby: What do you like to read?

Judith: I like to read everything. I I start the day with two newspapers every day, and I. A lot of magazines. I read the old classics. I read some history. I finished a very interesting book recently about Lindbergh and Roosevelt, about internationalists and isolationists.

It was found very interesting and I'm. I'm reading Bob Gottlieb's book on being a voracious reader right now, which I love reading. And I like Ross McDonald, murder mysteries. I'm, I am, a very eclectic reader and I love poetry. And read poetry and. While everybody else is doing Word games and boggle and this one and that one I memorized poetry for my own pleasure.

I promise my friends, I'm not gonna force them to stand around listening while I recite poetry, but I will recite it to myself. 

Zibby: You are welcome to recite a poem if you would like. Now, the floor is yours. This is your moment to shine. 

Judith: Okay. Really? 

Zibby: Yeah. Really? 

Judith: Louis McNee, the. Sunlight on the garden hardens and grows cold.

We cannot cage the minute within its net of gold. When all is told we cannot beg for. Pardon our pardon is freelances advances towards its end The earth compels upon it, sonnets and birds descend. And soon, my friend, we will have no time for dances. The sky was good for flying. Defying the church bells and every evil iron siren and what it tells the earth compels we are dying.

Egypt, dying but not expecting. Pardon? Hardened and hard anew and glad to have sat under thunder and rain with you. I'm grateful too for sunlight on the garden. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I'm a, I'm applauding. I'll give you a standing ovation from my.. 

Judith: Thank you. Was that my desk? That's not a beautiful poem. 

Zibby: That is a beautiful poem and wow.

That you can just recite it like that. I can barely remember the Jabber walkie, which is, I memorized 

Judith: I have I drill, I, me, I memorized about 50. Whole poems or pieces of poems, that was the whole one. And then you have to drill or it's or it slips away down those holes in your memory.

But it, I think everybody should memorize poetry. I, it, I, it's like having these little treasures inside your soul that just, stop for red light instead of freaking out. 'cause you're late. We saw a little poem, huh? 

Zibby: It's like the ultimate in mindfulness. I love that. Oh my goodness. Okay.

I don't wanna keep you forever, but do you have any advice for the aspiring author out there? 

Judith: I guess my, my, my big advice is you just keep at it. You keep at it and and you're not you're not discouraged by the fact that the end of the day there was like one. Sheet of paper on your desk and a ream of paper in the trash can that you understand that writing is rewriting and telling it a million dumb ways before you tell it a good way.

And if you're a writer, you don't need to hear any of this from me because you're gonna do it anyway.

Zibby: Wow. Judy, thank you so much for your time. You were such a role model to so many, and your attitude about everything is just fabulous and how great I will start memorizing poems and think of you. So thank you. 

Judith: Oh, thank you. And it was a real pleasure to talk with you. It really was. 

Zibby: Oh, you too. I hope you have a great day.

Judith: You too. 

Zibby: Thank you. Bye-bye.