Communication and Necessities

The issue of mementoes of past marriages keeps circulating in my brain. The Jazzman and I talked briefly about it after my post a couple of days ago. He is remarkably communicative—unusual in men I've dated or married—and one word he said jumped out at me.

Need.

That one word spawned all sorts of thought branches. If I have strong and wonderful memories of my good marriage, which I do, and that good husband has been gone for almost twelve years and someone new and wonderful has entered my life, then how many mementos, how many pictures of long-dead good guys, do I need to keep around? And where?

My brother and sister-in-law have a round mahogany table beside the bed in the guestroom of their beautiful home in Tampa. The table is probably 36" or 40" across. It holds a table lamp and twenty or thirty framed photos. What a wonderful, inobtrusive way to display memories. The pictures are not in your face, but they're there if you want to touch them, hold them, or talk to them.

(Yes, I talk to my long-dead husband. No, I don't think he hears me! And no, he absolutely doesn't answer me!!)

As I was pondering this issue (and as I ponder, awestruck, this new relationship and wonder where it's going), I was reminded of my third husband, who was a widower. Even while he was preparing to propose to me, he was ordering his late wife's marble headstone and having his name and birthdate carved on it. They had been married 18 or so years. We were 43 and 47 when we married. There was a chance we would be married for forty years—and yet he still would have chosen to be buried next to her.

Part of me says it's just a hole in the ground and has no significance. But another part of me—probably the Little Adoptee—perceives that choice as a rejection.

Please, will somebody just give me an injection of LightenUp?!

So I think I'm getting closer to getting matching frames for the favorite photos from previous lives—Scott and Tyler as teenagers; JR and me sailing; JR and me at our wedding; JR in his tux; my friend Risa and me at the Rodin Museum in Paris; …—and making a space to group them.

My life is good. My life is finally, after twelve years and a helluva lot of depression and sadness, Good. I don't need to keep dozens of photos of the past prominently displayed, because I finally have a future!

What a very nice turn of events!