I am seeing all sorts of old and familiar faces since we moved back to my hometown. It’s been great getting reacquainted with now-grown children of my youth. We discuss how the town has changed. That the one stop light in town is no longer the one stop light in town. Gossip about the nastiest boy in our class has changed and where he is now.

I find it so very interesting to know who or what the townsfolk have become, who they’ve married and how many children they’ve had. Looking at the faces of their little ones makes me grin seeing the familiar face of their parents as children staring right back at me.

Somehow during the conversation I seem to blurt out, almost Tourette’s like, “My husband died.”
I feel like a dork when I say it. But I can feel it building inside me like a burp and suddenly spew it out at my long-lost acquaintance. The moment after resembles the pause that I could imagine occurring if I had indeed loudly belched in their face. My burped words seem to echo between us.

If I somehow manage to come away from our brief visit in the parking lot without this almost involuntary admission, I feel as if I have misled the other person somehow. That they are missing some huge part of the puzzle. But if I include it, it’s an echo invoker.

I still, after two years, do not know what is the appropriate way to include this humungous tidbit into a brief summary of my life…..and socially, I don’t know if anyone really wants to know? 

I wonder, is this normal? Do other widow/ers have this compulsion? Should I try to stop?