TheBanyanTree: Couples

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My husband has been dead for 28 months, yet my brain has not made the
transition to being single.  Its electronic waves still send signals that
I’m married.

I buy groceries for two, although I long since stopped buying Pepsi.  

I come home right after work, just like I always did.  I didn’t want to miss
a moment being with Ray.  Now I’m not missing a single minute being with the
dogs and cats.

When I need to make an important decision, I look for Ray for discussion,
for wisdom, and for guidance.  Of course, I’m disappointed when I don’t see
him, but somehow, I feel like he’s near and he does try to help.  When I
make a bonehead decision, I can almost hear him giving me a raspberry.

But the worst part of being one who does not have the other part is seeing
all the people who do have their other parts.

Everywhere I go there are couples.  Young couples, old couples, May and
December couples, happy couples, fighting couples, and middle aged couples.

And then there’s me. A singleton.  Alone.

I love watching the old couples, the ones who have been together for so many
years, that they don’t have to talk a lot.  A light touch is usually all
they need to do in order let the other one know what they’re thinking.  They
instinctively know what the other wants.  They know each other’s pasts and
presents, and have a feeling of where they’re going in the future.

Ray and I were so close to that couple nirvana.  We had a rhythm to our
lives that didn’t need tireless explanations.  

When a task needed to be done, we were able to split the work and meet the
goal.  Our biggest accomplishment was preparing our old house for sale,
selling it a down market, and making this new one our home.  I couldn’t
imagine doing it without him. 

We could talk about our money, where it was going, and whether we had enough
to make it through the week.

We divided housework.  Ray vacuumed and I dusted.  We took turns washing
dishes and cooking.

We shared interests, but pursued our own with full support of the other.
Ray loved having garage sales and I didn’t.  But I helped make the signs,
get the garage set up, and worked with the customers. 

We had our squabbles, but never let an argument go more than a couple of
hours before forgiving and moving on.

Sexual desire died very quickly in my first marriage, but Ray and I were
able to carry our passion almost to the end.  We had all kinds of physical
intimacies we would do throughout a typical day.  We always had lots of
banter about sex.  We made time to be physically together, the intimate
physical act led us to share our most intimate thoughts.

And we shared death, the most intimate of all human acts.  There is nothing
that will bind you to another human being, besides birth, than death.  Even
more than sex and sharing secrets and arguments and moments of joy, sharing
the passage of my dearest love leaving life created a bond between us that
is unbreakable.

Even though I’m grateful for having a single moment with Ray, much less 10
years, and all the things we had together as a couple, his death means I’m
alone, a singleton, and a widow, and I cannot watch other couples without my
gut twisting and turning.

They’re so lucky to have each other.  They’re so lucky to know when they
wake up in the morning, the other one will be there.  They’re so lucky when
they go to bed at night that the other one will be sleeping beside them.
That they’re able to have arguments and sex and children and decisions to
make together.  They’re so lucky.

But maybe I’m getting lucky, too.  I have Frank in my life now.

We’re not a true couple yet, because we’re not physically together.  He’s
working in Illinois and I’m here in Minnesota.  We haven’t established a
home together, worked out the money and the chores and where the furniture
goes and what to have for dinner.


But we’re beginning to create our rules.  We’ve shared our respective
finances.  He’s still recovering from my $2,000 a month mortgage payment.
He paid for his house in cash.  Obviously, he’s a saver and I’m somewhat
spendy.

He doesn’t like to fly and I don’t mind soaring above the earth.  He
believes in God and I don’t.

He doesn’t cook, but I do.  He can fix things and I can’t.  I know computers
and he doesn’t.  He has a dinosaur cell phone and I have a new Blackberry.

He quit drinking in 1990, and I rarely drink.  I can barely get down a glass
of wine.  Neither one of us smokes, but he chews.  I can live with that.

I work out and he doesn’t.

He’s a neat freak like me.  Stuff is put away and the house is clean.

We hate crowds. 

Frank is on an even keel emotionally, and I’m up and down with the wind.

We’re both introverts, can easily find things to do to amuse ourselves
without having to include other people to do them with.  We’re very honest
with each other.  There are no inconsistencies.

We’re considerate.  We’re solid like rocks.  We trust each other.

We tease each other.  We laugh together.

Best of all, he lets me talk about Ray.  I try not to do it too much, but I
can’t help it, the Ray stories just slip out.  I relate almost everything in
my life to Ray.  However, Frank has patience with that.  He doesn’t get
upset or try to stop me from telling them or get jealous of Ray.   I love
that about him.

And we live for holidays, because that’s when we can see each other.

I compare my relationship with Frank to people who fell in love during World
War II.  All those people had were letters that came sporadically.  Can you
imagine having a relationship through a letter that might not get to its
destination for weeks after you’ve written it?

Even though Frank is not with me on a daily basis, we use text messages,
email, and of course, nightly phone calls to build our relationship.

I’m hoping so much as Frank and I continue to fall deeper in love, that he’s
the one who will be by my side and I’ll be by his side as we finish out our
lives.

I want to grow old with Frank.  I want him to see my hair gray and watch the
wrinkles form on my face.  

I want us to be an old couple.  
   
Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

Corpse pose restores life.  Dead parts of your being fall away, the ghosts
are released.  
-Terri Guillemets