I winced at my dear friend's words. "Why
in the world would you want ANOTHER man in your life right now (or EVER)?"
she wrote in response to my blog post about a JDate fiasco. "You would
probably wind up being a nurse for him. You should be a caregiver for
YOURSELF."
Was my friend trying to guard me from a
future I wouldn't allow myself to consider? Why indeed did I -- now happily
independent in my new downtown digs -- sign up for JDate in the first place?
And, why have I been spying on physically fit
grey-haired men at my health club?
Furthermore, why have I asked my paired-up friends
to keep me in mind if they know an older single male who meets my criteria;
i.e. strolls without the aid of a walker and drives at night?
"Someone to hug," I shot back,
believing my pathetic answer would win sympathy and stall further scathing. My response
seemed reasonable, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it
wasn't bodily contact I missed. After all, there's any number of friends and
relatives who would welcome my arms wrapped around their torsos.
If not an embrace, what then have I been seeking
in my attempts to find a date? To find clues, I stretched out on the couch,
closed my eyes, and reviewed past examples of familiar marriages. And, what I
came up with is this: I miss the feeling of being adored.
In my stroll through wedlock history, I
realized Tommy spoiled me for future relationships. When I rummaged the drawers
of our house before I put it on the market, I found stacks of yellow-lined notes that I had saved and bundled in
rubber bands. Each one a sentiment from a love-struck middle-aged man who
paused every day to let me know he felt as if he had won the lottery.
Tommy's heartfelt
emotions were a revelation because they were unfortunately missing from my
first marriage, and tragically one-sided in my parents'.
In my initial
go-around, my husband and I appreciated, admired, and cared for each other.
But, did we adore one another?
Perhaps in the stars-in-our-eyes early years; but after that, with our own
personal struggles blinding us, the word went missing.
My parent's marriage
was so impressionable that it spurred my memoir, "The Division Street Princess." As I wrote: Irv loved Min from the moment he saw the 19-year-old
neighborhood beauty. But alas, Min didn't return his ardor. It wasn't until her
old-world mother urged, "You'll learn to love him," that Min accepted
Irv's proposal.
Bubbie, you
were wrong! Despite Dad's longing, and his purchase of gifts he couldn't pay
for -- like the mink stole cradled in tissue and presented in a white box --
Mom never grasped the lesson.
"Take
it back, we can't afford it," I remember her saying as she stared at Dad's
present. And bity me, channeling my father's pining, pleaded, "Just try it
on, Mom, just try it on." She did and twirling in front of a full-length
mirror like a 1940's movie star, decided to keep the mink while Dad paid for it
in monthly installments.
I never did
learn why Mom couldn't return Dad's adoration. I guess some of it could be linked
to her disappointment in spending her pretty young life behind the counter of a
grocery store on a tenement street. The neighborhood beauty deserved better.
So perhaps
glum childhood scenes inspired me to take the part of my mother in my adult
life? I would show her how an adored wife acts. When I would find Tommy's love
notes, I'd squeal as if they were hidden jewels. Then, I'd get my own post-it
and draw a heart with the words, "Love you, hubber! and tuck it into a gym
shoe, golf glove, or some other spot he would later discover.
Among the
other mementoes I saved was a letter Tommy wrote to me early on. It was the one
I read it to him as I sat on the other side of the metal railings of his hospice
bed. It was two pages long, written in pen on yellow-lined paper and began: My Darling Elaine, I don't know what lies
ahead but I do know I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and taking
care of you. We make a great team. When I think about all the years I was alone
I realize now that you were the missing part of the puzzle that makes it all
fit together.
That's what
I'm talking about.