Google can tell you a lot of things, but not what to feel when you discover your ex-husband has died.
Searching online for news about former family and current friends, I stumbled over his obituary and lost my emotional equilibrium. It couldn’t be him. I checked his alma mater’s website, yes—the memorial announcement was there too. I didn’t want to believe it. May 1st, his birthday. It was him. No mistake. The computer screen turned soft focus. It was hard to see.
That no one told me about his death was sad commentary on how far we had strayed from one another over the decades since the divorce. No friends in common, no communication, no hard feelings.
He was tall, lean, and sandy haired, with Nordic good looks. I was a naïve college senior and he a businessman, just a few years older, with a house on Lake Michigan. We had different politics and points of view, but were bound by youthful optimism and mutual passion. He proposed to me in a shaky canoe on a fast flowing river before the first freeze. I didn’t grasp the metaphor back then. Christmas trees decorated the chapel during our December wedding.
I moved into his place where a spiral staircase led to the expansive master bedroom with views of waves from every window. Clothing and shoes were my only contribution to an environment he had already shaped. It never felt like home but more like a life-raft between college and adulthood. He wanted a stay-home wife and children, I wanted a career. A few weeks after returning from our Florida honeymoon (his idea), I got a job at a TV station (my idea). Even though it was the early morning shift, I was in heaven. About a year later, he stopped watching my news stories and I spent longer hours at work.
The last time I saw him was the day the divorce was final. After that, we spoke occasionally but went off to different corners, time zones, and partners.
There are bittersweet memories of those years: how he wrote poems for each special occasion during our short time together—even in honor of our third wedding anniversary which we both knew would be our last. His silhouette on Lake Michigan sailing WindQuest, the boat he loved…his many kindnesses. Most of all, I will think about his wife, now a widow. They had two sons. I hope they look like him and carry his poet’s soul.
I had this man’s ring for three years and his last name for ten. And now, I have a wedding album holding another picture of someone who lives only in memory. Not a grandmother, or a great-uncle, but my young and smiling, handsome groom.
Lakes, rivers, tears…they christen, cleanse and dry. If there is a lesson here on the death of someone you vowed to love, but left, and then lost, it is this: they always linger inside your heart.
– Beverly
