Will my father survive retirement without a wife?

My father recently retired to a lonely rural home after many years of public service in Nairobi. Although he has money to rely on, and we are there for him — although we stay in Nairobi and he is in Nyahururu — we feel that loneliness might kill him faster than any ailment.

My mother passed on some five years ago and at times we think that it would be fine if my dad got a companion. But how do we tell him this or should we let the river flow its course?

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The first day of work must be the day one starts planning for their retirement. This ideal, however, is neither realistic nor is it achieved by many people. When did your father start planning?

Like taking up medical insurance, many people start to plan retirement when it is too late and the damage has already been done. In the case of your father, life seems to have placed him in double jeopardy, first by removing him from Nairobi, and secondly by taking his wife away.

You tell us that your father lived and worked in Nairobi in the public service until his retirement.

What then is he doing in Nyahururu? It sounds as though he has moved from his home in Nairobi to a house in some far away land, which is not only cold (for an old man without a wife) but where he is surrounded by total strangers whose lifestyle is completely different from his. He is urban and they are rural farmers!

On the assumption that he was by definition an urban dweller most of his adult life, the changes he must now make to his lifestyle are almost too drastic for an old man’s body to take.

If, for example, he was the kind of public servant who had a wide social circle of friends and workmates, who met in the evenings and weekends at the clubs, life in Nyahururu is a prescription for disaster. Where does a 65-year-old man start finding new friends?

Does he join the local church, development group or chama, or does he try to attend every funeral and wedding he hears about? Why should the people of the local community welcome him back, now that he no longer can offer any services from public service? How much had he invested in the local community before retirement anyway?

Just because he had bought the farm, built a house and had a few farm hands working there does not allow your father to impose himself on the Nyahururu community, which has over the years developed its own systems of coping. He is a stranger who is trying to claim a position in the community that belongs to the locals.

I have seen many men of my generation retire and “go home”. For many, like your father, “home” in their case is a misnomer because after leaving, say, Seme in Kisumu or Kasigau in Taita after high school, their only other contact with “home” is to attend funerals! Even weddings of their children are held in Nairobi.

When their parents fell ill, they would be brought to Nairobi for “better care”. All their adult lives have been spent in Runda or Makongeni. For these people to then expose themselves to conditions of adversity they have no experience of is at best negligent and at worst suicidal.

The second challenge your father must confront is the death of his wife five years ago. It is a well-established fact, that following the death of a wife, the widower then follows, often because of a “broken heart”. An old study showed this to be true in the case of men over the age of 70 who tend to die of heart attacks.

Other reasons may also contribute to your father feeling alone and neglected. If, for example, your father relied heavily on his wife to manage the home, it is possible that he is, for the first time in his life, having to manage an area of his life, without any prior exposure.

From my experience, few things are as complex to manage as a home. Basic things like how often bed sheets have to be washed and changed, to more complex issues of when and where the shopping is done and by who, confront the widower at a time of his own failing health.

Some families have clear division of responsibilities and the absence of a wife can be catastrophic in some cases. Many men lack cooking skills and their lives collapse into a heap when a long standing house-help decides to leave “because mother is no longer at home”.

These examples sound almost ridiculous, but these are the things we come across in real life.

So, should your father take a companion? The simple answer is, it depends. Does he want one? What is the state of his health? Where would he begin to look? Are you offering help? What about your mother’s friends who are widowed? Many questions cry for answers.

Bottom line, however, is that a companion is good for many widowers.