The Trio

Los Angeles, California

Losing a spouse after thirty-five years of marriage is fraught with painful memories. And I am that weirdo who has a perpetual calendar in my brain. When the roulette wheel of dates lands on a certain number, I can generally tell you something about that date. Maybe it's a long ago friend's birthday or some historical event. I think I got this from my dad. He had an excellent memory for history and often shared this knowledge at our family dinner table. Mom used to say that dad should have been a history professor, though his students might have struggled to stay awake during his long descriptions of historical events.

The bad thing about the date thing is that I remember every tragic occurrence in my life as the dates approach, as well as on the day. When you lose a spouse you get a memory trifecta: Their birthday; their death day. and your wedding anniversary. Tom's death day occurs a few weeks before Christmas, and my BFF Lynnette usually spends that day and night with me. But this year she could not, so I asked Cin if she could come and stay. Cin had recently reconnected with her ex-husband, Michael, and I asked her if the three of us could get together sometime. Michael lives out of state, so it was a little tricky to schedule. But it turned out that he was going to be in town at that time so we agreed to invite him to join us. And he accepted.

In the early days of our marriage, Cin and Michael were our closest friends. We did  almost everything together. They were a bit younger than us and unmarried when we first became friends. Cin was still a student at the university where I was on staff when we met and became friends. Just after Tom and I married, we invited them over to the off-campus apartment where we were living at the time. Michael brought pastries from Chinatown. When we purchased our first home the following year, they came on a Saturday to help us paint the walls. My mom dropped off sandwiches for us that day. And then, there were the two camping trips to Morro Bay. The first was a fun trip. On the second one, the guys drove up together during the day and Cin and I followed that evening after work. Upon arrival we discovered that they had brought almost nothing designated to make the trip, except for the case of Henry Weinhard beer. And they had worked their way through a great deal of it before we arrived. They forgot the camp stove (though I had placed it next to the case of beer). Tom even neglected to bring a toothbrush. Things went downhill from there. I was furious, and it was our last attempt at camping.

Within a few years, Cin and Michael married, then divorced. We started a business, then moved away from the little house near campus. They both remarried. Our marriage faltered. Then Tom died. It had been eleven years since that happened, and almost forty since those days of our close couples' friendship. And now Cin and Michael were coming to dinner. Cin and I were both a bit trepidacious about this event, but we needn't have been.

There is something uniquely sweet about reconnecting with old friends and remembering times shared. We talked and laughed a lot. We didn't talk much about Tom, and that was ok. I can talk about Tom, but my voice always goes wavery, broadcasting the emotion that will always reside just under the surface. My family always used to say they could tell how I was doing by my voice. So it wasn't a night of memorium; rather, just spending the time with old friends, which felt good. That night, the many years we had spent apart fell away. Afterwards, we vowed to stay in touch.

We were in our twenties when we first met. At that time, had anyone asked me what our lives would be like in the future, I would have gotten most of it wrong. I would have thought we would all still be married. We would have had kids. Michael would have been the one with his own business. Cin would be working in a corporate environment. I might still be at the university. Tom, who knows? I wouldn't have known at that time, but I should have been fervently wishing for him to find a good therapist and join AA. Harsh, I know. Hindsight is a bitch.

I hope we will see more of Michael. Then again, I reconnected with my college boyfriend a decade or so back, and that too was sweet, but unsustainable. Still, the value of old friends is immeasurable. And for spending time on an evening as difficult as that one always is, it was a gift.