“I don’t get how you can be a widow and not go on a somber stroll once in a while,” said Hastings’ neighbor Anthony Arbuckle, lamenting Hastings’ failures as a bereaved spouse. “She doesn’t even walk into town wearing dark sunglasses and a headscarf, avoiding the whispers of the neighborhood ladies.”

“Not only that, but she rarely stares out her window longingly with one hand on the glass, wistfully recalling rosier days,” commented Arbuckle, disappointed in the widow’s lackluster mourning. “And I do see her on her balcony sometimes, but she doesn’t gaze at the ocean because it reminds her of her lost husband’s soul. She just sits there and reads a magazine.”

“Honestly, I bet she doesn’t even set a place for her dead husband at the dinner table and eat alone in sad silence,” added Arbuckle, peering through the widow’s screen door to double check. “And I don’t think she ever gets up in the middle of the night, wraps herself in a black silk robe, and talks to her husband as if he’s still there brewing a cup of lavender tea before bed.”

At press time, a shitty widower wasn’t gently caressing any Polaroids of his late wife laughing carefreely.