19
Have You Remarried Yet?
I wanna show you, how I’ve grown in this place
In this place, I’m not alone and I know I’ll be okay
—Luke Sital-Singh
It’s a hard thing for me to talk about, let alone write about, but I promised myself that I’d be as open and honest about everything as my inherently private nature allows. I tell people to talk about loss and about end-of-life issues, yes . . . In other words, this is a topic I have never talked about, but I feel it is important to lend permission to others in my position. Not talking about dating feels dishonest.
I’ve talked to a lot of widows and widowers since Amy died, and there’s no doubt about it, we each have our own timetable and our own unique path toward healing and moving on. There’s no rulebook, no right or wrong, no should or shouldn’t, no too soon or not soon enough. I have a family friend who lost his wife more than six years ago and still shudders at the thought of dating. I’ve met men and women who were married within months of losing a spouse, and others who have no intention of it.
I slowly became aware that I was missing the companionship of a woman, which I hadn’t had in a good couple of years. My sole purpose, my life’s mission for the two years before Amy died, had been taking care of Amy and getting her healthy again. That turned into being her caretaker, which was intense and laser-focused and all that mattered to me. I couldn’t deny that now there was something appealing about the idea of sharing a meal, a good cocktail, and some music with a woman who’d enjoy them as much as I do.
Amy hadn’t just given me her blessing to find love again, she’d actually encouraged it. I talked to each of my kids separately to ask how they felt about my dating in general, and they gave me nothing but sensitive, understanding support, as did the rest of my family and my close confidantes.
And to be clear, once I’d determined I was open to dating, it didn’t mean that I started actively looking, that’s for sure. I had no interest in Tinder, or Bumble, or eHarmony, or any of those other online dating sites, just as Amy mentioned in her viral essay. I still don’t. I knew that if I was going to start to date again after thirty years of being out of the game, it was going to have to happen organically or not at all.
The first “encounter,” if you can call it that, happened at an exercise class. One of the women there was particularly attractive. After class we spent a few minutes chatting about the intensity of the workout and other small talk, and I left wondering, had I just been flirting with that woman? Logically, I knew that even if I was, it was harmless and perfectly okay. But honestly, emotionally, it felt like I was cheating on Amy. The visceral conflict was palpable.
Not long after that, a buddy and I had tickets to a concert by a band Amy and I loved. He canceled at the last minute, but there was no way I was going to miss that concert. I went by myself and found myself in a similar situation—smart, sexy younger woman, casual conversation, very sultry on the dance floor. I tried to just relax and have a good time.
I consider Amy’s express permission in her piece to begin another love story a real gift. As I started to think about dating, I was not thinking about love. It was enough to walk around the streets of my own city, my community, with someone other than Amy. I felt guilty and kept looking over my shoulder. When I was asked about what Amy’s message meant to me, I told the world that her blessing has been a guide for me in the most meaningful way. It permitted me to even think about other women, dating, and the idea of a relationship with someone else.
Having said that, everything was and remains complex. It’s no secret that Amy occupies a place in my heart and always will. Knowing that makes whoever wants to be with me a unique and openhearted individual, and any relationship I might find myself in would have to be predicated on the notion that my past is still going to be a part of my present and my future.
It was some time later that I happened to meet a hazel-eyed identical twin. Again, I wasn’t looking for her, but after we’d spent some time together, I knew there was something special about this woman, and my world changed.
We started seeing each other, and the companionship, her companionship, felt so good. Even then, when she and I started going out in public, I was still apprehensive about being judged for enjoying myself with a woman who wasn’t Amy.
My kids, my family, my best friend, and my therapist talked me through it, and I finally got it that all the disapproval and judgment I was so braced for was self-imposed. Everyone who loved me, especially Amy, just wanted me to be happy. I was the one who’d been holding out, afraid that if I let myself be happy without Amy, I’d be dishonoring her, betraying her somehow.
What I finally came to realize was that being happy again would actually be, in a way, a testament to the thirty beautiful years I’d had with Amy, and my memories of them that, no matter what happens along the way, I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. It’s because of her that I know I have the capacity to love deeply and to embrace every minute of joy I can possibly create.
Amy left that blank page at the end of her essay for me to compose my fresh start. I get it that it would be perfect to end this story by explaining that the empty space has been filled. I am certainly open to that. I think the larger point is that there is that intentional empty space. I ask myself often, as I ask many people I have been exposed to over the last several years, what I will do with my blank page, with my fresh start. In many ways, I answer that question every day. With new experiences. With an entirely new perspective on seeing the world. With a woman I think about many times throughout the day. With mindfulness and an open heart.
Thank you, Amy, for giving me that gift.
Epilogue
A Permanent Place to Gather
Please, sir, may I have some more?
—Charles Dickens
Not long ago a close family member asked me, “When are you moving? Aren’t there ghosts everywhere?” A little crass, I guess, but I understood the desire to protect me from too many memories and too much loneliness.
Whether to pack up and leave or stay right where you are is an intensely personal decision after you’ve lost a spouse you treasured, a decision no one can really make but you. I completely get it that staying is unbearable for some people. For me, at least for now, it would be unbearable for me to leave my house, to go home to some new place after a day’s work or an evening out or a weekend with the family or a trip.
I’ve mentioned several times that this was Amy’s and my dream house, and there’s no other way to describe it. We built it together from the ground up, on the same site as the little frame house we bought together, on a tree-lined residential street that’s about a ten-minute walk from Wrigley Field. When our kids came along and we realized we were running out of space, we hired my best friend Jeff as our general contractor, tore down the frame house, and started over. What we created can best be described as a modern farmhouse, with fabricated wood paneling on the outside and a whole wall of bookshelves on the inside that extends from the basement to the third floor, because we could, because we wanted to, because that was so much of who Jason&Amy were.