Love After Loss: How the Universe Brought Two Widowed People Together
In 2016, I wrote this after my husband’s sudden, unexpected death.
I decided that life is moving on. I choose to honor my late husband and our life together by living each day. I feel that I was given a wonderful gift.
Instead of being a spoiled brat complaining that it wasn’t enough time, I choose to be grateful for the wonder of the gift. And for the years we shared.
I accept that I’m still here because there are more chapters in my book. I’m not going to squander my life. I’m going to honor all I’ve been given by living each day.
That’s what I tell myself on the strong days and the emotional ones. Left, right, left.
Right after I made that statement to the Universe, opportunity came along. I couldn’t shut my brain off after my husband died. I couldn’t sleep so I looked for things to do. One of the things I did was help friends write or edit their dating app profiles. I also was helping one of my friends find men on a dating site. I couldn’t see full profiles without joining. So, when the site had a promotion that offered a free trial period, I signed up.
Then Tom came along and the dance began. Days later a guy found me online and contacted me. I liked his bio but he didn’t seem to be my type. And my primary goal in signing up was helping my friends. But he contacted me (on my late father’s birthday), and wrote “I joined match.com to practice meeting people and to be able to answer the questions of who I am and what do I want. This has been helpful to that end and I’ve found that I like who I am. Meeting people is also much easier, it’s dating I need to work on. I’m really, really rusty. The thing is, I’m not a serial dater. I prefer to focus my attention on one woman and one woman only. I don’t want to get ahead of myself though. Let’s talk first, maybe meet up and see if dating is a possibility for us.”
Well, that didn’t seem intimidating, so I wrote this message back to him, “Loved what you wrote — and am happy to be friends. I sense religion is important to you (saw the pic!) — truly how do you feel about me being spiritual but not religious?” I figured that would signal him that I wasn’t the one for him, without me rejecting him outright.
He responded, “It’s not an issue for me. I’m an Episcopalian because I enjoy how the Episcopal Church expresses the Judeo-Christian faith-path I’ve chosen to follow. The path you’ve chosen is yours to follow. If there’s something in mine you find useful, you are welcome to it. If there’s something in yours I find useful, I hope you don’t mind if I appropriate it. I’m always interested in and open to different ideas and perspectives.”
I wrote back, “You’re bright and balanced — how refreshing!” and when he responded with “Thank you. Life is too short and this world is too beautiful to live confined in narrow ideas”, I realized that maybe I was on the site for more than helping my friends. The following day when he emailed me “Do you have any plans for Friday?” I mulled over my response and eventually responded, writing “I’m free”.
It wasn’t just any day. We met on the same month and date as the anniversary of his first date with his late wife, with whom he shared 32 years. It was also 13 weeks to the day after my husband died. My late husband was fixated on the number 13. Whenever we were at a stop light, he’d point out how all the nearby license plates had numbers that added up to 13 and he’d prove it, albeit with creative math. He saw 13 everywhere he looked.
It was a good date, nothing outstanding but nothing wrong with it. I was impressed that he was relaxed and comfortable in his own skin. We finished our meals and sat outside at a table next to the restaurant’s front door. We sat on nearby sides of the table and chatted. A woman walked by and told us to get a room. We had no idea why she said that because we weren’t on the same side of the table, gazing at one another, or even holding hands. A while later, we saw the owner and waiters in a huddle, standing next to us. He asked if he could take the table and chairs because the restaurant had closed and they wanted to go home! We hadn’t realized that hours had passed.
We got up to leave. I took two steps away from him to get into my SUV. He grabbed my hand and intertwined his fingers in mine. I don’t know why but as soon as he did it, I robotically walked to him and we embraced and kissed goodnight. He doesn’t remember reaching for my hand and I don’t know why I walked towards him.
We were unknowingly under a spell. We went out the following Tuesday, to a restaurant that I frequented. Zoey, my usual server, waited on us. After leaving the restaurant, we walked through the parking lot to Tom’s car. He opened the door to show me the Bluetooth radio he had installed and, standing so near, we started to kiss. When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see the huge parking lot floodlights were on. It wasn’t dark when we left the restaurant. I was disoriented.
And there was something in front of the bright flood lights. It was rain, coming down sideways! I was surprised because I hadn’t noticed it was raining. I was wearing a silk blouse and Tom was wearing a silk suit. I saw that the car seat was soaked and so were our clothes! He shut the car door and walked me to my SUV, where we continued to kiss.
A few days later Zoey told me that she and her peers watched us kiss next to his car for an hour and a half, in the rain. Well, that explained why the parking lot lights were on. But how did we stand and kiss for so long? How did neither of us feel the rain? We are both usually well aware of our surroundings. How did we not notice the feeling of rain pelting down and soaking our clothes? Neither of us ever had an experience like this before.
We are not alone. Fast forward a few months when we started living together. One day I was home alone and walked past the living room. Something told me to sit on the couch, so I did. I felt that I was in conversation with Tom’s late wife, who I hadn’t met and didn’t know much about. But I felt it was her. She told me that my job was to make him happy. I was a bit insulted, because that was my plan and I didn’t need to be told that. But I felt that she was telling me what to do. She had a very forceful personality. I knew not to peeve her. It was so odd, because I’m afraid of my own shadow, but I wasn’t afraid or weirded out by feeling that Laura had beckoned me to sit down and listen to her.
When Tom got home, I told him that Laura said hi. He asked me to tell him more. I told him that I assumed his late wife would have had the same calm demeanor as he did. I never would have thought she’d have a personality that felt like 10 freight trains coming at me. He was delighted because he knew I met her! It turns out that she had a huge personality and was larger than life. He said she’d enter a room and suck all the oxygen out of it. He told me that her forceful personality drew attention wherever she went. Yeah. I believe it. Frankly, as nice as it was that she found her way to me, I can’t help but wish that my late husband or other loved ones who passed would have done as she did. Honestly, I’d give anything to have one more minute with my late husband.
There is more at play here than just us. Its more than coincidence that we first emailed one another on my father’s birthday. And that the date of our first face-to-face encounter linked us to both of our late spouses. There was something that drew us to kiss as soon as our hands touched. Something was at work to make us both feel that we mentally left the parking lot space for a moment, only to become aware of our physical space 90 minutes later, as witnessed by the restaurant staff. I can’t explain that his late wife visited me to tell me what she wanted of me, as if she was giving me her blessing as long as I did what she said.
Connection doesn’t end. I don’t think these are coincidences. I think that we are connected to our loved ones and it isn’t limited to the physical. I’m not a weird nutjob. I’m a regular person who’s had spectacular experiences. I think when we can’t explain something, we liken it to being strange or crazy. But I think its neither. I think that we’re tethered to the intentions of the Universe. Whether we’re willing or unwilling, life unfolds the way it does. I’m just beyond grateful for these experiences.
Life and love don’t end either. I emailed this to Tom a few weeks later.
Date: 8/9/2016 11:09:29 AM
The tears come during the exhale of relief when you realize that it is possible to love and be loved again. When the clouds part and you feel the warmth of the promise of true, happy love.
It’s huge to swallow the pain of loss and grief. And equally huge to realize that there’ll be a day where the focus won’t be on past burdens and loss. Living with loss in each breath, it’s easy to lose sight of anything on the horizon other than the familiar crushing pain of grief and emptiness.
Until you meet someone who makes you feel completely at ease being yourself. Where you feel comfortable in one another’s space. Where being near and not intertwining fingers feels odd. Where the part of the brain, that validates, questions how it’s possible to feel that way so fast. And the rest of the brain, heart and soul understand that many things are possible. It’s possible to lose one’s partner. And somehow continue to live. And find the strength to clear away the past so as to make a path towards the future.
And to be hopeful. And to be willing. And to be flexible. And to take a chance. And to be shocked to find that the person in front of you checks off your boxes — even the ones you didn’t know you had until they were thrown in for good measure. Like finding out that we’re both fiscally responsible, hugely optimistic and wired to help others.
When you kissed me and wrapped me in your arms I was amazed. I felt alive inside. I am very much alive. All of me didn’t die. My heart is still alive. I can be joyous and fulfilled in this life.
We recently celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Like all time we spend together, it feels like we just got married a minute ago. The way I can see that time has passed is that our love has grown and we love every day that we spend together. To my knowledge, Laura hasn’t returned, so I guess she’s happy with me. I’m glad.
