10/11/2026
Well, howdy to all our new Reubens and Reuben-ettes! Welcome to DOV-A-LICIOUS! 💗💛
Every once in a while, I go a little off the DOV-A-LICIOUS track and talk about my life experiences as a widower.
I do this for a few reasons. First, writing helps me. Those of you who have lost a spouse will understand, and those who haven't, well, unfortunately, many of you will someday.
I'm a widower, I'm a survivor, and I'm going to keep moving forward.
You only see a very small part of what I actually write. But when I feel something I've written might help someone else, even just one person, I'll share it.
I'm not looking for sympathy. That's not what this is about. I'm just sharing my experiences, the good, the bad, and sometimes the downright ugly.
And somewhere along the way, we'll keep making a few Reubens! ❤️
Loneliness, the Silent Killer
I haven't written anything publicly like this in a very long time.
It's been almost two years since my true love, Debbie, passed away. Two years of highs, lows, and some very, very low lows.
I'm on a new journey now, continuing the plans and dreams we had for the deli. Things are moving forward, and I'm excited about what the future holds. But there's a major piece missing. The most important piece.
Yes, I know Debbie is watching. I know she's seeing the success, and there are times when I truly feel her presence around me.
But that's not really what I'm here to talk about today.
I want to talk about loneliness. The silent killer.
Grief comes in so many forms, and every single one of us grieves differently.
In the beginning, the pain is so intense that sometimes you just want to die along with the person you lost. You struggle to get through each day. Your mind is constantly asking questions.
How am I going to survive? What am I going to do? Where do I go from here? How am I supposed to live the rest of my life without the person I love?
It's a constant battle of "How do I?"
You feel like your life is over. You don't want to be here anymore.
And the truth is, we will carry grief with us for the rest of our lives.
But grief changes. It takes on different forms as time passes. Then it changes again. And again.
It doesn't necessarily change the pain. It changes us.
Somehow, we have to figure out how to live with it and keep going.
And something else happens that nobody really prepares you for. Friends disappear. Family disappears. People you thought would always be there suddenly aren't. Why 99.9% of them seem to vanish is a mystery to me. Maybe they don't know what to say. Maybe they don't know how to deal with someone else's grief.
I don't know. It just happens.
So we go on.
We exist.
We get up. We go to work. We come home. We repeat it all the next day.
And eventually, something else begins to settle in.
Loneliness.
And I'll tell you something. There are times when I think loneliness can be just as painful as losing the person you love.
We always hear about heart attacks being the silent killer. And that's true. But in my humble opinion, loneliness is right next door.
It's coming home to an empty house.
It's having nobody to talk to about your day.
Nobody to send that little "I love you" text to in the middle of the afternoon.
Nobody telling you to pick up your clothes.
Nobody asking you to stop at the grocery store on the way home.
Nobody asking you to fix something around the house or reminding you about something you forgot to do.
All those little things that used to drive you crazy.
What you wouldn't give to hear them just one more time.
In my case, I work so much that my home has taken a toll. Sure, I vacuum. I clean up here and there. I do what needs to be done, for the most part.
But there's this attitude that slowly creeps into your life.
"I don't care."
Not because you're lazy. Not because you've given up on everything.
But because you're asking yourself, "Why"
The house is quiet. The conversations are gone. The laughter is gone. The everyday routines that made a house a home are gone.
And no matter how successful you become, how busy you keep yourself, or how many people you see during the day, none of that necessarily fills the emptiness waiting for you when you walk through your front door.
People see me working. They see me joking around. They see the deli growing and the excitement of opening a new location.
And yes, I'm proud of what I'm accomplishing.
But what they don't see is the man who goes home at night.
The man who would trade just about anything to sit across from his wife and tell her about his day.
That's loneliness.
And it's something I don't think we talk about nearly enough.
Losing someone you love changes your life forever. But learning to live with the loneliness that follows is a journey all its own.
