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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Widow— Widower— Widowest— by Aaron M. Simmons begins after his wife, Polly G. Simmons, dies unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism following surgery, leaving him a single parent to three children, Peggy, Hazel, and Cary. As Aaron tries to understand what it means to remain Polly’s husband, he turns to her journals and discovers a writer whose voice had been sitting beside him all along. Her entries appear beside Aaron’s own pieces, creating the collaboration Polly had hoped to begin once she recovered. The memoir follows Aaron as he adjusts to raising their children in the Boulder home Polly transformed through her art, where the things she made remain part of their everyday lives. Her words return readers to the life she shared with Aaron. Together, their writing records a marriage that continues beyond the life the couple had expected to share.
Aaron M. Simmons and Polly G. Simmons’s Widow— Widower— Widowest— is an exceptional memoir, and Aaron writes about Polly with such affection that she very quickly feels familiar, and I soon felt that affection for her too. I loved how well the book captures Aaron keeping Polly present for their children, like when he reads to the children at night in the room he shared with Polly and wonders whether she can still hear their laughter. Aaron’s openness is just as raw when he learns how to crochet so that he can finish the blanket Polly had begun for Cary, and his realization that he can now read her stitches feels wonderfully tender. Polly’s journal entries make her voice unmistakable beside his, creating the collaboration Aaron hoped to preserve. Well written and moving, readers looking for a memoir about widowhood and the enduring connection between spouses after death will adore this.
