Gouri Majumdar cannot take her eyes off the TV screen. Italy has just won the World Cup and the TV screen shows cheering crowds. But the 68-year-old homemaker and grandmother of three isn’t a football fan. “During every World Cup, she would be very irritated with Papa for watching football till late in the night. But now that he is no more, she watches all the matches,” reveals Sarbari Roy, Majumdar’s daughter, who says that her parents had celebrated their 49th marriage anniversary the year her father passed away.

When M.K. Kothari, 80, lost his wife of 52 years, he accepted his eldest daughter’s proposal to move in with her family in Durgapur. A year later, Kothari’s daughter Meenal feels helpless watching her father cope with insomnia and irritability. “Age isn’t a factor ? he was so jolly even two years back. My children adored him. Nowadays, he just snaps at us, asking us to send him to an old age home,” frets Meenal.

Losing one’s spouse in old age is an inevitable, though painful, rite of passage. But few realise the magnitude of the problem or devise proper solutions. Most adult children think providing a home and medical care for their surviving parent absolves them of their responsibilities, failing to realise that the situation may trigger a host of medical and psychological problems.

Dr Debashis Ray, practising psychiatrist at the Apollo Gleneagles Clinic and Hospital and AMRI, Calcutta, takes a serious view of the situation. “Psychologically, the elderly face tremendous emotional upheavals on losing their spouse. Feelings of isolation and denial are common and so are personality changes or, conversely, an accentuation of their personality. Some may even try to recreate their prior life by leading double lives ? their own and that of their spouse.” In most cases, unresolved grief and survivor guilt exacerbate the pain, which may intensify into serious psychosomatic problems ranging from dementia to a death wish, from psychosis to substance abuse.

“Although reactions depend on the quality of the relationship shared by spouses, waiting for death or ‘reunion’ is a strong response in many. However, it may dilute with time. Sometimes, it’s the other extreme, when the fact of death simply doesn’t sink in,” Dr Ray notes, adding, “physical and material insecurity, alcoholism and an obsessive engagement of some kind are found amongst many elderly people.”

But do men and women grieve differently, or are they conditioned to do so? “In India, ‘widow’ is a more loaded term than ‘widower’,” feels 70-year-old Himani Sen (name changed), a retired educationist who’s a widow, elaborating that certain family members look askance if she eats fish or wears pastel sarees instead of white ones. Dr Anjan Ghosh, a sociologist at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, feels that gender does determine the way people grieve or are expected to grieve over the death of a spouse. “In more traditional societies like ours, social customs increase the suffering of widows. In addition, an elderly widow would normally have little interaction with the outside world without her husband around.” Dr Ray adds, “Though elderly women are generally more emotionally resilient than men of their age group, material insecurity gets magnified.” However, Dr Ray says that elderly women by and large do not feel as rudderless as men do because “although the individual dominance of the husband ceases, the collective dominance of society remains as strong as ever.” In a patriarchal society like India, that’s a mixed blessing.

For elderly men, however, it is a different story. “Mom was our point of contact with dad. After she died we don’t know what to talk to him about,” Ranajit Ghosh, an executive, confesses shamefacedly about his 68-year-old father. In most Indian families, the woman is still the greatest link between father and child, and the husband’s greatest caregiver right up to old age. “Most elderly men lack practice in voicing their needs or even communicating with their children in the absence of their wives,” reveals Dr Ray. Sometimes, in their loneliness, elderly men may even consider a new relationship and there is a high risk of depression and alcoholism, he adds.

However, although death is inevitable and loss irreparable, there are ways in which the elderly can get some practical succour. Dr Ray advises some thought-provoking, yet effective ways. “Most couples, married for a long time, demarcate tasks ? physical and socio-cultural ? between themselves, complementing each other. While that might increase the couple’s efficiency, it is harmful in the long run, because when one person dies, the survivor is crippled. It’s a good idea to reduce complementing each other’s tasks and get a degree of emotional autonomy.” Grieving helps, just as denial harms. “Reserved people, especially men, may find grieving tough, and it’s up to the children or close loved ones to facilitate the process,” Dr Ray advises, adding that it is wise to have a parallel support system of friends and relatives at all ages.

The twilight years can be traumatic in the absence of a spouse with whom one has built a life and shared a lifetime. “My parents had a beautiful married life for 42 years, before my father succumbed to a stroke four years ago” reminisces Himani Sen’s daughter Deblina, herself a teacher and a mother of two. “But Ma never asked ‘Why not me first?’ thinking that was selfish. Instead, she busied herself, teaching my maid and her daughter. Thanks to Ma, my maid can read, and her daughter is doing well in school.”

Truly, despite bereavement, the twilight years needn’t be a traumatic void. It can also be a time to re-establish the meaning of life.