Meeting in the Mists of Grief

He loved me before we ever met...at least that is what my husband tells me. He is a brave man, falling in love with me through an old-fashioned letter-writing courtship courtesy of a high-tech dating site, Match.com. Feeling safe enough to be my gregarious, opinionated, sarcastic self, I met my match in his super-smart, dreaming, tender heart. My mother said he was the best looking guy I had ever dated..."and that includes high school" and she knew before I did that he was the ONE. I think my mother must have sometimes been terrified that I would run him off (I had become quite good at that) and she was always an unabashed cheerleader for the relationship she knew would make me happy.

Now that she is gone, I wonder if my husband knows how much it meant to me for my mother to love him so. He can only hear my version of the relationship dramas that played out in the years before him. Thankfully, mom was never compelled to share with him the worries, disappointments, and frustrations she most surely endured watching me chase the wrong guys, all while being their wrong girl.

My husband's parents are still alive, even though they are older than my mother...I am envious, with no one to blame for what feels like an unfair circumstance. Consequently, he isn't in this place where pain and tears are constant companions; where days aren't measured by sales made or tasks accomplished, but by how all happenings great or small, are so lonely without my Mother to share them with.

So he listens to my cries and my regrets. I can't talk about the happy memories yet; those come later I assume. He tries to say the right thing, and I am quick to tell him when he has missed the mark. We are speaking a different language, living in the same house, on separate planets of emotion.

I love him for trying. I love him for the innocence he has that I no longer do. I know he has been with me for some of the worst days of my life, and that I won't run him off. I am so glad he knew my mother, and that she knew him. It has been two months since she died, and I know I will never be the same woman he fell in love with....he loves me anyway.