Wilson...

Back to comparing my widowhood with the movie Castaway.  It's time to address Wilson.  For a long, long time I didn't think there was a Wilson comparison. How very wrong I was!

In Castaway, Chuck is isolated and alone on his island. He desperately needs companionship. Widowhood is very much like that island isolation.  One moment you are in a world with your life's companion a purpose, a destination. Next moment you are plunging into an unwelcoming sea of despair. After floating aimlessly through that stormy sea, you find yourself shipwrecked on a foreign piece of soil. Alone.  You struggle with that alone-ness. Enter Wilson.  Wilson supplied the connection that Chuck so desperately needs --- Companionship through the mundane tasks of survival. Someone to talk to. A sounding board, a presence.  A substitute for the real thing. The need not to be alone is so intense that Wilson is a comfort and a bond with the substitute becomes "real" for Chuck.

What is the real thing, anyway? I think that when you are in a place of vulnerability it is easy to be duped. Flattery is powerful; it can sweep you away or suck you in. Elaine Chan and Jaideep Sengupta at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and published in the Journal of Marketing Research conducted a study which explored our susceptibility to flattery.  The bottomline is that we can be manipulated.  Chuck's Wilson was just a soccer ball; that was all that was available to meet Chuck's need for companionship.  The Wilsons that the widow meets are far more animated and seemingly better able to fill that need. A widow's Wilson will be a man like those mentioned in Psalm 12:2 - "They speak falsehood to one another; With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak."

In that fragile state of aloneness, disconnected from the spouse we loved so much we are prime targets for smooth-talkers with empty promises. It is easy to forget that our best interests are not at the heart of some men. There are men who merely look at a woman as an object to be obtained. Romans 16:18, "For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting." 

Even if she realizes that Wilson is not the real deal, the attachment is still present and the hurt of letting go is sincere and deeply felt. Just as Chuck grieved when Wilson became untethered and floating away in the waves, so the widow will grieve when she chooses life over maintaining the connection. I find it fascinating that the whale awakens Chuck to the fact that Wilson has been set adrift. The whale always seems to be a Watchful Eye, representative of God's Hand. It is like God said, "I allowed this fake companion in your life for a time to comfort you. However, he must go so that you can be free to heal."