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What Does It Take to Date a Widow?
As I write this, my partner Chris is sitting across the kitchen island, typing something on his computer. He’s focused on what he is doing, so I can take a minute to look at him. He’s got a scruffy face, the kind of stubble that’s sexy on men like him, and he’s wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg t-shirt, which makes him even more attractive to me. He is not smiling right now, because he is working, but I can see the softness that’s always in his eyes. It’s a softness I know because he looks at me with those eyes all the time. Just behind him is a photo of…
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My Love Language
I can hear the murmur of his voice coming from upstairs. It is so early that the birds have only just started to chirp and the sky is still a bit dark. A few minutes ago, I heard the patter of little feet – they are Tommy’s, I’m sure, as he is always the first awake – and then the rustling of the covers. After a moment, the reading began. It is not the first time that he has read to them. They are almost done with the book he started just a few weeks ago, as he reads to them at night and whenever we all need to take…
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Who Would You Love More?
A few weeks ago, as I was chopping vegetables, Claire came into the kitchen and started talking to me. We chatted for a while about our lives, including when my boyfriend Chris was going to come back to stay with us again. “He’s back home for another week,” I told her, “but then he will be here for a long stretch. He’s really excited to see us again.” She smiled, did a little hop and said “yay!” It was quiet for a moment as she looked at me to see what I’d say next. As I sat in that space, I could feel her thinking. I waited. “Mama,” she said…
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Shawn’s Birthday, Year 3
I’m doing the best I can to make this summer a happy one for my kids, but it hasn’t always been easy. Back in March, when schools were closing and my dad was leaving, I started to worry about being home for a long time with no possibility of seeing anyone else. How was I going to manage my children and my teaching responsibilities? How was I going to go to the grocery store? What in the world were we going to do all summer, if we couldn’t see our extended family or go to camp? So during that first week of quarantine, I bought a pool. Turns out, it…
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“Making It”
When I was in graduate school, I listened to a presentation by a professor about single moms. At the time, I was a 28-year-old without children, so I didn’t question much of what he said (although he wasn’t a parent or a woman, which did make me think, “how does he really know what they think?” Actually, now that I write that as a 41-year-old single mom, I’m thinking, “there’s no way he truly understood what their experiences were like!” But I digress.) Anyway, his theory was that the single moms were grouped into two categories which basically consisted of “I can’t do this anymore” and “making it.” I actually…
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Second, As In Again
For over a decade, there was one photo that always hung in Shawn’s office. In it, he cradles me in his arms, my white wedding dress draped over his body. Our heads touch at our temples. We are beaming. It is one of my favorite photos, rivaled only by a few I have of my children. When Shawn died, I moved the photo to a special bookshelf in the basement bedroom, right above where the kids kept their board games. I wanted them to see it every day and know that there had once been a great love story in their house. Often when I’d go to the basement to…
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