The other day I ran into somebody that I havent seen since literally my teenage years. It was somebody I went to school with, but not somebody I knew well. It was at the gas station, and we were both at the pumps getting gas, and she recognized me and said hello. Then came the small talk, the how have you been’s, and she told me that she just started following me on Facebook recently, and she is so happy to hear that I got married and had a New Years Eve wedding and bought a house, all leading up to my 50th birthday. She ended her dialogue with something to the effect of: “So many people marry young and buy their homes in their 20’s and 30s and I just think its so cool that you are doing those things now as you turn 50! ” Then, before I could really reply or think about what she had said, her cell phone rang, she answered it, and she waved me a goodbye as she drove off.
And as I stood there filling up my gas tank, it became clearer in my mind what had just happened. She just recently started following me on Facebook. She mentioned she doesnt get on there much. I dont think she knows anything about Don. I dont think she knows that Im widowed. She doesnt know about the entire life that I had before I had this one, or how hard I worked to care again or to rebuild another life, and how hard I still work to carry “what was with what is with what will be”, as my beautiful friend Michele says. She doesnt know that Don Shepherd was a thing, that he lived, and that he died, and that his life and love and death changed me forever. She thinks my first marriage happened in 2020, and that before that I just never found my person, or was single, or whatever. She thinks I was not a homeowner until age 50 by choice instead of by tragic circumstance, and she doesn’t know that it took me 5 YEARS before I was even ready to date, and then another couple years of train-wreck dating before I met my next love story. She doesn’t know.
And as her car pulled away and I stood there having this realization, I wanted to run after her vehicle screaming: “BUT WAIT – THERE’S MORE!!! There’s more to my story!!! You only know the second half!!! Its incomplete!!! Im not just someone who got married later in life! I’m a remarried WIDOW!!! Don’t you see??? I’m a widow, and I’m re-partnered, AND I still love my dead husband, but I’m IN LOVE with my alive one!!!! DON’T YOU GET IT? WE HAVE A CREEPY PARANORMAL THREESOME! Come back! Listen to the rest of my story! Hello???”
I have no idea why it was so important for me that she know all of this, but it was. It felt important to me. Maybe because Ive worked so hard to get to this place that I am in today, AND its still hard, and its still complicated, and Im happy, and Im also sometimes still very sad. I guess I wanted her to know all of that, because this life and this joy have been hard fought for, and shouldnt go unnoticed.
Its funny – when I first became widowed, I hated the word so much. I didnt want to be called a widow or have anything at all to do with widow anything, because that meant my husband was really, actually dead forever, and now this was my life. I wanted to run away from it for a very long time. Now, a decade later, I almost want to shout it from the rooftops sometimes whenever someone doesnt know the whole story of me and what led me to today and to this current moment. I dont want my life with Don to ever be forgotten or shortchanged, even by acquaintances I run into at the gas station.
Living parallel lives is complex, lovely, emotional, and layered.
And every last piece and moment of it needs to be recognized and acknowledged.
As always, thanks for listening