Just had a very sad experience today. An old friend of mine, a year older than me, got married about five years ago. At the time they met and fell in love, she knew (and, very shortly after that, he knew) that she had an inoperable brain tumour that could well take her life. They got married in 1999. Last year her health began to deteriorate, and in January this year she died.
He was absolutely devastated, and it's taken the last five months for him to reach a point at which a memorial service could be held. It happened today, in the backyard of the house they'd bought together, in the middle of the garden she'd planted. It was a beautiful scene -- he was surrounded by family and friends.
For the last ten months I've wallowed a lot in my own situation, coming to grips with the end of my own marriage following TBXW's revelations of multiple affairs and the fact that she never loved me the way I loved her. I, too, have gone through a grieving process that still goes on, with its own ups and downs, but it's getting easier with time. The hurt is receeding more and more every day, and my fraudulent marriage is closer and closer to being put on a shelf and consigned to history.
What struck me so much today was the monumental unfairness of the whole thing. In my situation, I have no pleasant memories of my life with her -- the things I can take comfort in are the memories that involve my children, or things I accomplished, or my friends, or my family. The memories of her and me are all poisoned.
But what I do have is the ability to look at my own situation and know that I can find somebody better out there, and build something new with them that isn't built on lies. I don't have to worry about making comparisons between TBXW and the next person I fall in love with, because there will be no comparison.
But my friend doesn't have that luxury. Yes, he has his memories of the deep love and happiness that he and his wife shared. Those can comfort him. Theirs was pure love. And while my fraudulent marriage simply ended, my friend lost the person that he loved and who loved him so much. And she's gone, and she can't come back. If any marriage should have survived, it was theirs. And yet she was taken away far before her time.
Eventually, when he feels stronger, no doubt my friend will start to move on, to meet somebody new. But he faces an absolutely herculean task that I, in my situation, have been spared: naturally, he will spend a lot of time comparing every woman he meets to his wife, and feeling that they simply can't compare to her. In that way, my situation is much easier.
I'm sorry if this is rambling. But his pain was so great and his recovery from it will be, it seems, so much more difficult than mine. And he and his wife shared true love. How unfair is that? Why couldn't their love, that was genuine and pure, be spared and they be allowed to grow old together?
<small>[ June 20, 2004, 01:10 AM: Message edited by: reservoirdog1 ]</small>
