Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for May 20, 2015

Oh Val, I know it sucks to be mature, but you’re going to have to get over your fears and realize that love is stronger and better!

And this is where Val knows that she’ll always be by Phil’s side – in sickness and in health, forever.

I think the nurse just “twisted the knife” ;o)

Just enjoy the love while it lasts.

Stop thinking of just yourself, Val. If you truly love him, be there 100%+ for him. That is real love. I just can’t get over that she is even thinking the way she is. Idiotic, selfish & immature. Man! I pray it is a temporary moment of insanity due to a sudden mini-stroke.

Didn’t Hillary support?

I don’t think she actually loves him.

I think she does love him, but she’s still in the selfish “what about me” part of all of this. She’ll come around.

come on Val be there for Phil help him recover. Phil would be there for you.

I think she needs help because of her fears, but honestly this “stand by your man” stuff — be REAL honest and admit that most of you would not be as hard on a manif he left. Because they do more often when a woman is ill or injured…

As someone whose father died at 45 (I was eleven, and had three siblings, two very small), I think people are being a little hard on Val. I wasn’t even the wife who lost the love of her life and had to raise four kids alone, and I still had to think long and hard about marrying a man whose health is not good, and also about having a child with him. It took some serious talking between the two of us, including an, “I breed, you live” (that is, go to the doctor regularly, take your meds, be honest with the doctor about how you feel, etc) agreement. It’s very easy in the abstract to say that love conquers all and is worth it and all the cliches, but when you’ve had concrete experience with how damn much it HURTS to love and lose someone through death, it’s not easy to make yourself vulnerable, especially when you love someone with a dangerous job.

I agree that Val should be handling this differently – therapy, waiting for the shock to wear off, waiting until Phil is better and facing this as a couple – but I think it’s unfair to suggest she doesn’t love him or to call her selfish for doubting her ability to go through widowhood again so soon.

Phil never heard it. I think.

Right now, I am very upset and angry with Val for being selfish. She will be 1/2 of this pair and if she looses Phil, chances are she won’t find someone else 1/2 as good. Of course, she has her fears, but…life is life meant to be lived, not relived!

Val seems like the kind of person (emotionally) that a breeze could knock over. Let’s hope this little breeze coming from the decent no-nonsense nurse or PA will push her in the right direction.

Val isn’t married to Phil yet, and the whole point of this storyline is her figuring out if she can be the wife he deserves after already being widowed. That’s not selfish; it’s honest, and understandable, and as much about his needs as hers.

Should she blurt it out NOW? No. But people aren’t always rational during trauma. Honestly, given how many people in comments kept telling Phil to run because of the potential emotional, financial, and general complications she brings to the marriage (which is to say, her girls), I’m kind of side-eyeing the lack of empathy and compassion for a women who has already been widowed having some doubts about whether she can handle that again.

She didn’t flip on a dime: she had a bad scare, a scare whose details are similar to a past trauma. No, she should not be trying to make decisions right now, and no, she’s not handling this in the best way, but this doesn’t make her a bad or weak person; it makes her someone who needs some help and support, who is probably suffering some delayed PTSD, someone who needs help to decide if she can handle being widowed again. I’m not saying that some of the criticism aren’t valid, but I think some people are being awfully quick to judge. I just try to incline towards kindness when I can. I don’t always succeed, but I try.