Letters from NYC

Conversation with Michele

I was sitting there reading the NY Times while visiting Michele as she was stretched out on the couch with her right leg propped up on a pillow with an ice pack on her knee. We had been sitting quietly, me reading - she thinking, for upwards of an hour without saying a word to each other.

She was staring out the window and looking up at the night sky, when she noticed me staring and turned to look at me for a moment: �What have you been thinking about all this time?� I finally asked her as I glanced at the newspaper.

�Nothing really� she replied and turned to look back out the window. After a long pause, in which I read an entire article, she asked, �Have you ever read Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein?�

�No, but I have heard of them.� I stared at her thoughtfully for awhile. �I was just wondering� is this what married life is like.� She looked at me intently for a moment, almost as if to read me.

�Well, that depends on what you�re feeling at this moment?�

After considering a bit, I shared: �comfortable, serene, relaxed.�

After a deep reflective sigh, and with a tone of real honesty, almost wistfully, she said �Imagine those feelings, along with contentedness and an abiding love and you have the feelings of someone who is happily married.� After making sure I understood, she settled back into a quiet reverie of years gone past and didn�t speak again until I left.

Though she is still mourning, she is now in a place of acceptance and simply learning to live with the loss. Sometimes I am blown away by her resilience, conviction and strength. It almost makes me feel self-conscious and somewhat ashamed that I tried to play her once.

Last month, during lunch she said to me that I needed to learn more about women in order to respect them as people so that I could eventually have a successful relationship with one. As I check in on her I can�t help but think how right she was and how this is all part of learning that life lesson.

Posted by Michele at January 20, 2007 11:08 PM