Mickey Martinez was the kind of husband many women dream about. He loved grocery shopping and did it weekly at a nearby supermarket, took care of household repairs, washed dishes and was always ready with a broom or vacuum when needed.

But after he died, Mary Alice, his wife of 37 years, found herself paralyzed in the supermarket the first time she tried to go shopping. Six months later, when preparing her traditional Christmas Eve dinner for 12, she cried out in frustration as she tried to cook, clean and set up for company on her own, "Mickey, where are you when I need you?"

But Mary Alice soon learned to shop; guests now contribute to the annual dinner, and hired workers do needed repairs in her century-old Brooklyn home. And without a husband who had told her "no more pets," she now enjoys the company of a cat and a dog.

Every year millions of Americans — women and men, straight and gay, old and young — are thrust into the role of widow and widower, forced to learn how to cope on their own after many years of sharing life's chores. Some have the help of grown children or friends who live nearby, but even they are often faced with tackling tasks their late spouses had done.

When asked how I'm doing since my husband died in March, I often respond that I need a 48-hour day. It's a challenge to be Richard and Jane and still do my work and enjoy my life. I have yet to balance the checkbook, there are piles upon piles of unprocessed paperwork everywhere, and, if not for the help of my sons, I would be clueless about managing my finances.

But I do keep my walk swept, and I've cleaned up two large yards, tasks we had always done together. When the man who came to replace my gas meter found a hole leading to the chimney and said he would have to turn off my furnace, I said "No you don't." I ran to the hardware store, bought a can of "instant" plaster, climbed to the top of a ladder and, straddling it and the adjacent furniture, this 4-foot-10-inch, 69-year-old woman plastered a rather large hole near the ceiling while the meter man waited and didn't even offer to hold the ladder.

Although friends have told me that non urgent jobs can wait, I have undertaken several sorely needed home repairs. Using some of the money set aside for my heirs, I've ordered new windows and a door to replace leaky ones that fit poorly, and I hired workers to paint and caulk flaking window frames and rusting iron gates and repair cupboards that don't open or close properly.

A recent widower I spoke with understood my compulsion to get things done. In adjusting to the loss of a spouse, "it helps to be a positive, directed person," the widower, Dr. Stephen A. Goodman, a retired periodontist from Scarsdale, N.Y., told me.

Each accomplishment is empowering. Lyn Hill of Brooklyn, widowed last year after 37 years of marriage, felt that surge of strength when she figured out how to fix her broken printer.

"Joyce used to write the monthly checks," Goodman said. But when she died, he put them all on automatic pay and learned how to do laundry and run the dishwasher. And I've learned how to hang and fold the sheets for the bed I shared for 43 years with the man who had always helped. When I go to the movies alone, I now ask strangers to explain plot twists that baffle me.

People like Goodman, Martinez, Hill and (I believe) me have what experts call "psychological resilience" — the ability to take life's blows in stride and get on with it rather than dwell on the pain of loss, no matter how challenging it may seem at first.

After the death of Joyce, Goodman's wife of 44 years, Goodman recognized the value of keeping busy and pursuing his many interests: photography, theater, concerts, museums and art galleries. He also dines regularly with a group of interesting men who call themselves Romeos, an acronym for retired older men eating out.

Of course, having money and time to pursue such activities does help, as does the realization that life's pleasures should not end with the death of a spouse. But when a surviving spouse is left to raise young children alone or is forced to find a new or better job to make ends meet, the challenge of adjustment is that much greater.

Widows outnumber widowers by nearly five to one — about half of all marriages end with the death of the husband — but the remarriage rate among widowers is more than eight times as high. And although managing financially is usually more difficult for widows, widowhood tends to be more harmful to the health of men. Of course, most challenging of all, at least at the outset, is the emotional adjustment.

As Joan Didion eloquently portrayed in her book "The Year of Magical Thinking", adapting to the loss of a spouse is particularly difficult when the two lives were closely entwined, professionally and socially. of the other.