My beloved husband Arthur has been dead for almost four
months now. Yet, in the last couple of months, I have come to realize that our
love affair is continuing. Obviously it’s taken a different form, but the
relationship lives on in a very real sense.
Before today I have only talked about this with one other
person because I thought it would probably sound odd to people who haven’t lost
a lover to death. I know it would have seemed odd to me not long ago. The one
person I did share it with lost her husband some years ago, and she was quite
sympathetic, as I knew she would be.
Then yesterday I read an essay in the New York Times entitled I Am a
Bigamist. The author, Jill Smolowe, is also a widow, and she writes about how
her love affair with her dead husband has continued, even in the new
relationship she has with her second husband, a man who lost his wife and has
his own separate love affair. Ms. Smolowe says they discussed their continuing
love affairs before they were married. Because in her heart she is still in
love—and married—to her first, dead husband, to be married to a second man
means she is a bigamist. How beautiful; such an expansive vision of love, and
of life and death.
In “Better Angels,”
a lyrical film about Abraham Lincoln’s youth, death plays a major role.
Abraham’s mother died when he was fairly young. In the film, Abraham has a very
special relationship with his mother, and her death was difficult for him (I assume
this is based on fact). His father re-married, and there are some touching
scenes where Abraham learns that loving this new mother doesn’t diminish his
love for his biological mother.
The most moving scene for me was when the new mother went
into a field and met the ‘ghost’ of Abraham’s mother, and the two women
interacted in a loving way. What I saw communicated between the two was the
understanding that the biological mother had her part in this family and the
two women were going to co-exist. After I saw this movie, I thought, “If I ever
have another intimate relationship, that person is going to have to learn to
co-exist with Arthur’s spirit, which will always be here beside me.”
I am grateful for Ms. Smolowe for this article, helping me
understand that this experience I’m having is something to celebrate, a sign of
the great love that exists between Arthur and I. Arthur may have died, but our
love lives on.
