Blessed

 
I spoke with another recent widow yesterday.  She approached me at a church function.  Her widowhood was totally unexpected and shocking.  We commiserated a bit and then she told me something interesting:

The tatt he got in the 90s in solidarity with me

"At least you had a career."

And I considered that.  What she meant was that I had a life well outside of my spouse's and she had not and that made it easier for me to be alone now.  While it wasn't a terribly thoughtful thing for her to say, it was undoubtedly true from her POV and perhaps just plain valid.

I know how to act as an individual. Most of my friends know me as an individual (Will not wanting to go with me to many of the school events or church events.)  Neither of us was terribly successful in getting the other one to give up irritating aspects of personality.  He wanted me to be monogamous -- that never worked.  I wanted him not to be so critical and negative -- and that didn't work.  

But though we separated once and had our running arguments, we never gave up on each other.  And though we never understood each other either (or ourselves, not to put too fine a point upon it), we loved each other until his death. I know, because the day before he died he told me and I told him of our love.  And he looked at me with "those eyes" that don't lie.

It was a long,  challenging, and beautiful relationship, filled with joy and sorrow, like any old fashioned marriage.  We rarely spoke harshly to each other.  We always respected each other.

I tell you what, when we married, I expected it to be temporary.  I believed marriage a bourgeois invention. But somehow, through love and inertia, we made it through the hard times to enter a wonderful 25 years during which I worked and he kept house and we were very happy.  Then there was the dementia care but even through that, we had many good times in between the harsh realities.

 He died 50 years, 65 days, and 15 hours from when we first fucked.  ("But who's counting?")

Never in my wildest youthful dreams did I imagine our relationship.  Never did I imagine I could remain committed (if not "faithful") to a single person for so long.

And as for my career -- it was Will who encouraged me, supported me, and even (gasp) when we were separated loaned me money and books to get through the doctoral program at Utah.  (Unsurprisingly, he had all the Kenneth Burke volumes I could want!)

So yes, I am luckier or more blessed than a widow who lived in her spouse's shadow.  

Will and I were free and ourselves and there will never be anyone like him again.