Widow. The word consumes itself.
He who marries the spirit of the age soon becomes a widower.
In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown. This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.
Some widowers are bereaved -- others, relieved.
Whoever marries the spirit of the times must soon become a widower.