One of the things I hated most about being a widower was the occasional awkward situations that inevitably arose in the months following her death. For example, a couple of times I ran into someone who hand't heard about Krista's death. As we caught up he or she would eventually ask how Krista was doing and there'd be that brief moment where my heart would stop and I'd have to tell them what happened. In my mind I can still see the embarrassed and uncomfortable look on their faces which, for a brief moment, made the situation even worse. I always tried to make them feel better by smiling and acting like it was no big deal. I'm not sure how successful I was at it but hopefully it was something they didn't feel bad about knowing for long.
I was reminded of this tonight when I heard that Kathie Lee Gifford asked Martin Short, in a live interview on Today, "the secret to his great marriage to wife Nancy, including how they still make each other laugh." For those who don't know, Nancy died in 2010 after a battle with cancer. You can watch the entire interview below. If you don't want to watch the entire thing, the awkward moment starts at 3:30 into the interview.
The one thing I have to give Martin Short credit for is the way he handled the situation. There's a lot of (bad) ways he could have responded but he just answered the questions and moved on to the next part of the interview. Apparently someone told Kathie Lee about her mistake and if you watch the end she does apologize for the mistake. (No word if the producer, assistant, and/or intern who wrote the question for her has been fired.)
My question for GOWs, WOWs, and widowers is have you had similar awkward moments and how have you dealt with them?
(Thanks for the tip, Erin.)