- Not The Only One!
- Post # 60 5 Jan 23
- “Songbird “
- Howdy and as always thank you for being there. I usually share real stories and real life events with you guys. I sometimes tell you about something that is intimately personal to me , and sometimes I share other people’s stories, sometimes I do that well and sometimes not so much! This one today is called ” Songbird “, because the person that I’m Sharing about is named after a bird, and instead of using her actual name , I’m calling this one songbird. I don’t usually use people’s real names unless it is something of a very positive nature and I think that they should be known for being a genuine good person, and whether we want to admit it or not, the world gets just a little bit smaller with each passing day, along with some technological advancement. I know that my last post was tied to the Midwest and this one is also. I almost don’t know where to start with this one. I had some thoughts running through my head about child brides, and at the same time, something about being counter cultural. Let’s see if I can draw the two together. So, I met this lady online and a very common question came up , and that is how long have you been single. It is quite often attached to what are you looking for here, or as in a potential partner. The question was asked, and it was followed by a significant amount of silence. When the silence was broken, she began to tell me this amazingly beautiful sad story. I don’t believe that anyone can tell your story the way that you do personally, or first hand, but I’m going to attempt to do justice to the regurgitation. ☺️☺️. Songbird confessed to me that she wasn’t actually single , divorced, or even legally separated, in fact still very much attached. This is not a first rodeo dynamic, I have encountered a broad range of scenarios, where people just want to keep things interesting, or at least, make sure that you are on your toes. I’ve encountered people who say that they have a ” hall pass”, just like that is a real thing. There have been others online who pretend to be nonattached to find out that they are on a fishing extradition, to see if you want to be a third , or if the spouse could just watch, or possibly join in , if you are comfortable with that. I guess this is where different strokes , for different folks comes into play ☺️☺️. And just for the record, it may be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, just not my barrel of monkeys. Let’s get back to Songbird, this woman began to tell me that her and her husband have been living apart for the last several years and that he is in a nursing facility, a few hours away from where she resides. He was a veteran and I believe that he caught just the tail end of our conflict in Southeast Asia. My mind was racing to her being a child bride , if she is the age that she says that she is and married to someone so much older. She then tells me that they are only a year a part, and that she got married at seventeen, straight out of high school. The lady from the previous post, mentioned about one of her sisters wanting to get married right out of high school, but that her father insisted on her doing a semester of college. As soon as that semester was up, they were at the alter saying their “I Do’s “. Whatever they are putting in the water out in the Midwest, must be working, because they eclipse the forty year marker, and are heading in for the home stretch. I jest about them putting something in the water, but I just think it was a time when people had more scruples and they took the whole sex thing within marriage more seriously, and on some level it seems to have a blessing from God all over it. And if you don’t understand a blessing of God, then think about it this way, explain how Chic Filet does more business in six days than the restaurants that are open seven days a week and even the ones who do it on a 24 hour basis. So, Songbird continues to fill In some of the missing pieces and she tells me that her and her husband are closing in on the their Golden anniversary, and since so few people reach that anymore, a lot of people have no idea as to what that is , the fifty year mark. It’s a big deal and a pretty amazing accomplishment. I know some of you critics are thinking wait, if they have been living apart for the last few years, then that doesn’t really count. In the beginning I said that it was a sad and beautiful story, and not without its twist and turns. She confided in me that she had health concerns of her own and that she was a breast cancer survivor and that through out her walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that her husband was by her side every step of the way. Her marriage had produced three children and while they were not at the four corners of the earth, they had become spread out, one on the east coast, one on the west coast, and one in mom’s basement ☺️☺️. I’m not sure, I didn’t ask ,and she didn’t clarify if that was one of those failure to launch things or what. The point being that her children, had forged out for a life of their own, and if you do a good job, that is exactly what is supposed to take place. She didn’t go into detail about what all of her husband’s health concerns were, but that they were more than she could handle at home alone by herself. There was this surprising element, but then again perhaps not so much, but the kids found it difficult to visit their father in his reduced capacity. I kind of get it, but at the same time it comes across as a little wack. I don’t want to say selfish, because again that would require me to put on their shoes and I’m not sure that my flat feet would fit.☺️☺️. I just think that family should always be about family, and I know that is not how it always works in the real world . This may be a bit morbid, but it is the analogy that popped into my head and maybe it will make sense and perhaps not so much! This man their father and her husband has been in some reduced capacity, possibly vegetative and that is not the person that the kids remember their dad to be. He is not actually on hospice, and the potential for him to continue on for sometime to come without any real improvement is an all to real possibility. While Songbird is on a dating site, she is fully committed to being his wingman until the very end. Her words were, “he was there for me and I’m going to be there for him”. I think, feel, and believe that to be a very noble, valiant and most importantly the correct choice of action. My thought process is that she is in a state of living grief. The majority of the time, when in such a circumstance, I think it’s usually a year or less that we are waiting for someone to pass. This is probably a little more unusual of a circumstance, but the fact remains that she is waiting for her husband to pass away. My morbid analogy for the kids is that on some level they have already kissed their father goodbye and want to remember him in his “glory” days , or at least when he was more the man that they remember. Now as to whether that was him playing catch with them or riding up on his shoulders when they were little, or running the grill out on the patio, and yes there were probably times of deployment, when they just missed their dad, I’m sure that each one of the children have some special memories that they wish to protect , preserve and to not remember their father in a nursing facility and only a shell of the man that they once looked up to and I’m sure respected. As I said, I want to always think that family should be about family, so why it is probably difficult for them to see their father in that state, sometimes we have to just suck it up and do hard things. There should probably be some balance there, and no, I have no idea as to what that is or should be. At some point in the past he was a giver, in the form of provision, protection and some standard of stability for his family. I don’t know this man, never met him, and I can’t say that I don’t know him from Adam, because she did share a very nice photo of her and her beloved from a not to far ago visit . The point being, I think that it would mean something to him, to have his kids visit him, but I could be wrong about that, like I am about so many other things. I had a dear, dear friend pass away some years ago, again the cancer thing and it did wreak havoc on her body between the radiation and the chemotherapy , she wasn’t the person that I had known for all of those years that she served as a surogat mother to me, and she just didn’t want people to see her that way. I kind of understand a strange mix of vanity, not wanting people to feel pity for you, thrown in with a smidgen of pride and wanting to preserve some dignity until that final breath. They say that even people who are unconscious and in comas benefit from human interaction and touch, but again I’m leaving a wide birth for me to be incorrect about this. Let’s throw a new piece of the puzzle into the picture, while she is committed to seeing this through to the end , she has been in counseling, trying to grab hold of perspective and her life. It’s no question that they are husband and wife , but not in the traditional sense of it . I get that for some people while advanced in age this is their life. When I was with Ms. Anonymous, she would share some very beautiful , heart wrenching stories about couples who had spent their whole lives together and since she worked in memory care, often one would not even recognize the other, sad but true. They were sometimes very faithful to come and visit every week or as much as possible, and sometimes to just hold their hands. There is something that is just so sweet and beautiful about that love, and at that stage of life. Again the goal is unto death , and they get it, and many resound themselves to we will see each other again on the other side. It’s majestic and there are few words that can describe the beauty of such a relationship like that. This is a sidebar as I often do, but we admire and revere such life long relationships, but we don’t posses the moral fiber or fortitude to see one through personally, and yes sadly I’m count myself in there as well. Marriage can be hard, and people who go the distance have been through some stuff, but they didn’t allow it to break them and they came out stronger on the other side. When I make the reference to advanced in age, I usually think of people in their mid seventies or better, and Songbird, is not close to being in that category. She appears to be a fairly vibrant woman who is very spiritually appreciative to be on the other side of surviving Cancer. I spoke of her living with grief, so that would also make her a living widow, and on some level that just doesn’t register or makes sense. It kind of reminds me of some of God’s promises in the Bible, it’s a certainty, but just not yet. I got the impression that she was on the dating site as something that her counselor thought would be helpful for her to think about her life in a future tense. As harsh as it may sound, life does go on. I can not tell you that I honestly know her mindset about all of this, but I do believe that she craves some kind of companionship, and that’s not wrong. I would imagine that it is really hard to be stuck in this state of in between, and perhaps stuck is the wrong word. Maybe it is a predicament. It kind of reminds me of people who have actually loss a spouse, but refuse to take the wedding band off, and can’t think of themselves as anything but as a couple. There was a cute sitcom on CBS a few years ago with a man in a similar situation . The name of the show was “The Unicorn “. He was a forty something dad, with two daughters and his wife had died. He was considered to be a Unicorn, because he wasn’t divorced and had not been married multiple times, which made him an oddity and in high demand. I think often people think that is super desirable because they did make it till death do us part, however as I stated before we all have baggage and surviving spouses are no exception to that rule. So they also have baggage, its just different from divorcees, or people who have never been drug to the alter. Sometimes they feel abandoned, sometimes angry at God, and sometimes thoughts of why could it have not been me instead of them. The show about the Unicorn, when he put himself back out there , he felt as if he was cheating on his dead spouse, sounds strange, but a pretty common thought process among surviving spouses. I can only imagine all of the different road maps that are being drawn up in the mind of the Songbird. I earlier had mentioned something about being counter cultural. It may not seem that way on the surface, but her steadfastness to be by his side is very traditional, which is counter cultural now these days. In one of my earlier post, I made reference to a man , who use to attend the same church as I did, and his wife came down with early onset Alzheimer, and he moved on. I gave him just a little bit of credit for putting her in a high end care facility, but deducted a vast amount of points for not going the distance, and I completely understand that he could have been looking at a decade plus of being exactly where Songbird finds herself. There have also been people who have divorced ailing spouses to protect assets, which is a shame, and a crime. There is something to be said for proper estate planning, but life is often unpredictable, such as coming down with early onset Alzheimer in your mid forties. I want to give the Songbird kudos and esteem her for making the best of a very difficult and complex situation. It may be a rare experience or situation to be living as a widow, while your spouse is still alive and probably not a first, but I don’t believe that you will find a do it yourself manual on how to navigate such a process. I tip my hat to her ,because as all of us know, when loosing a loved one, foreknowledge does not lessen the actual stress of it ,the grief, the loss, or the pain of the finality of it all. I have some readers out there who are ” purest”, and they like for things to be black and white, but so much of life does exist in the gray moments or gray areas of life. So, for those of you who fall into that matrix and find fault in her being on a site looking for a little companionship and human interaction, while still being married, I say shame on you and just get a grip….on reality.
- Till Next Time ✌️ peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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