• DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale hugs husband Chris at wedding
    Love and Chris

    What If It’s Better?

    One of my favorite things to do is to read fiction. After a break when the kids were babies, I started to read fiction again in 2017, the year that Shawn got sick. Obviously, when he was in the hospital, my reading was put on hold, and once he died I found I couldn’t focus long enough to do much reading of anything. But as I began to heal, I also began to read again. Nonfiction was impossible for me at first, so I stuck with beach reads and dystopian fiction, my two favorites. Once Chris and I were seriously dating, he marveled at how I could get lost in…

  • DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale marries Chris
    Love and Chris

    First Anniversary (600th blog post)

    When Chris and I first started dating, I emphatically told him that I didn’t want to get married again. At that point, it had been over two years since Shawn died, and over that time, a lot had changed. In early widowhood, I imagined that some day, I’d get remarried. In fact, this lasted for almost the entire first year after Shawn died. At that time, I wanted to get married again for no real other reason than that I wanted someone to save me from the life I was living. Save me from single parenting. Save me from being one of a few solo parents at the elementary school…

  • Husband of DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale with their son Tommy before wedding and adoption
    Love and Chris

    Kids of His Own

    About two years ago, when Chris and I first started talking on the phone during the early days of the pandemic, I worried about one thing above all others: What if he wanted kids of his own? He obviously knew that I had three kids already, but did he get what that truly meant? Did he understand how much work it was for me already? Did he know how I felt about the prospect of having more kids? I didn’t wait long to breach the topic with him. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of, “just so you know, I don’t want…

  • Husband of DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale in the forest in Maine
    Love and Chris

    What If He Dies?

    I woke up in the dark this morning, and I was alone. I could hear Chris rustling in the next room, probably putting things in his overnight bag. He was leaving on a very early flight. His job is still based in Atlanta, and thus to Atlanta he had to go. I wasn’t fully awake yet, and so I simply laid there, listening to his quiet movements. He stepped softly, not wanting to wake me up. He loves me so much, I thought. I’m so lucky to have him, I thought. And then, in an instant, my thoughts turned. What if he dies? I thought. My heart started to race.…

  • DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale sees husband Chris for the first time at wedding
    Love and Chris

    See It to Believe It

    It was a year into widowhood, and an old group of friends of mine had suggested a short trip out West, a long weekend where we could reunite and also lose ourselves in the landscape of the desert. It had been a good decision to go, I realized, as I sat with them the first night and drank margaritas and tried to brainstorm how to find me a man who could drown my sorrows, at least for a night. We laughed a lot and talked about the days before we had children. They spent a good amount of time listening to me talk about my terrible first dating experiences and…

  • DC widow blog writer Marjorie Brimley Hale and husband Chris
    Love and Chris

    Share Joy

    For the entire week leading up to our wedding, I couldn’t sleep. I was so nervous. When I’d toss and turn at night, Chris would wake up and comfort me. “I’m not nervous about being married to you!” I’d say each time, because that was true and I wanted to make sure he knew it. I told him that I wasn’t totally sure why I was feeling so nervous, which was also true, though I tried to figure it out. Maybe it was the stage fright, maybe it was throwing a wedding during Covid, maybe it was just all the last-minute logistics. I never really figured it out. But damn,…