Around the twenty year anniversary of

the death of his wife at forty-nine –

the woman he knew from the

time they were fourteen years of age

and threw hay at each other on a

church youth group hayride

and were married twenty-six years,

he would get weepy especially

when he talked to his kids –

a soon to be forty-five year old man

and forty-year old woman.

Upon hearing their

voices over the phone he would have

to choke back tears. He watched

Pal Joey on Turner Classic

Movies and melted with Bewitched,

Bothered and Bewildered which

his mother used to hum to

a Montavoni recording.  Unlike his

father, he was always a sucker

for a musical. He is

a happily married man who had just

celebrated the eighteenth

wedding anniversary

with his wonderful, widow wife. He

knew he wasn’t getting over

the loss, but he was getting

through it as was his wonderful, widow

wife getting through her own

personal grief in her own

way. Sometimes they talked about it and

sometimes he sings the lyrics or hums the tune

about his wonderful, widow wife:

If they asked me, I could write a book

about the way you walk and whisper and look.

I could write the preface on how we met

so the world would never forget,

and the simple secret of the plot

is just to tell them that I love you a lot.

Then the world discovers as my book ends

how to make two lovers of friends.