Who Am I When Nobody Calls Me Husband?

I recently heard an old song by Clint Black called “Something That We Do” and before it ended I was bawling like a baby.   I remember distinctly when that song came out dancing with Bride to it.  It was one like Lacey J. Dalton’s Sixteenth Ave in that way.  We just danced every single time we heard either one.  We both thought something that we do perfectly described our relationship.  That remained true from that day through our last, we adopted it as our anthem.  Love’s not just something that we were in, it’s something that we did, he was singing about us in that song.  We did love, and we did the hell out of it.   

I listened to that song probably 100 times on repeat, in some ways torturing myself, in others letting my pain out through my eyeballs.  A number of lines kept popping for me, the first was, the way we work together is what sets our love apart, so closely that we can’t tell where I end and where you start.  That is as good a description of our marriage as I ever heard.  I think that’s why we both loved the song so much.

Looking back now, I realize how much started with what Clint Black called a simple vow.  It cracks me up, I mean it almost seems ridiculous, that a couple of kids could stand in front of chosen and actual family and promise forever.  We had absolutely no idea what forever might actually look like. We didn’t know anything about anything really.  Nothing about our careers, about cross country moves, financial struggles, health scares, celebrations, disappointments or all the ordinary Tuesdays watching Star Trek.  No idea that all of those woven together would eventually make up a life, and a hell a life at that.  We just both said yes, and then started putting one foot in front of the other.  All the while looking for what our next adventure would be.   Somewhere along the way, being her husband stopped being something that I did and became who I was.   

Not because either one of us lost ourselves in the other one.  With nearly 40 years, our lives became so intertwined.  Looking  back, separating them seems impossible.   Our stories, our memories, our traditions, our dreams for the future, all got knotted together into the tapestry that was our lives.  If someone asked either one of us where the other one’s story ends and theirs begins, I am not sure either of us could have answered that question.

I find myself still wondering where losing her has left me.  So much of who I was existed in relation to her, it made me wonder, who exactly am I now?   Husband wasn’t just a word on a tax return or relationship status.  It was a big part of how I understood myself and how I showed up in the world.  It shaped the way I made decisions, the way I looked at the future, even the way I told stories.  Nowadays I catch myself starting a sentence with “Bride and I…” and then realize there is no “and I” story without her somewhere in it.   

I’ll be standing around at work, telling a story about a road trip, a concert, a restaurant or some dumb thing that happened years ago, and before I know it, there she is in the middle of the story.  Not because I am trying to force her into the conversation, but because after nearly 40 years she was already there.  Maybe that’s what grief has been asking me all along.  Somewhere underneath husband, widower, and all the other labels, there is still just Smitty.  I just haven’t fully figured out who that dude is by himself yet.

When you’ve spend almost 40 years building a life with someone, nobody tells ya that when they die, you don’t just lose them.  You lose a big part of the dude the mirror reflects back at you every time you look in there.  No one asks how Bride is doing anymore.  No one addresses cards to both of us anymore.  No one introduces me as Sandy’s Husband.  Nobody calls me Gorgeous Groom anymore either.  That was a title that only my Beautiful Bride used, and she took it with her.  No one sees the version of me that existed alongside her anymore, because that version was only visible when she was standing there with me.   I guess that must be true for all of us.  People who love us don’t just share our lives, they help create versions of us that wouldn’t exist otherwise.   

Maybe that’s why this has been harder than I expected.  Not because I don’t know she was, I know exactly who she was.  Not because I don’t know what we were, we built a hell of life together and when ya do that, you know each other in ways that can only be felt, not described.  The question that now sneaks up on me from behind is simpler than that.  If no one calls me husband anymore, am I still one?  The paperwork says no, the world mostly says no, but my heart, it has refused to even accept that fucking memo, let alone open it.

Maybe the answer started showing up in another lyric I’d overlooked for years, we can find our strength and inspiration independently.  That’s one I never really paid much attention to back in the day.  Back then the focus was always on the together part.  Those words hit harder now, I hear something completely different than back then.  Sure, we built a hell of a life together.  That’s the funny thing.  We became inseparable without every becoming the same person.  We encouraged each other, we challenged each other, and we helped each other grow, but neither one of us took a back seat to the other.  Haha, like she would take a back seat to anyone.  As funny as that sounds, that’s actually an important distinction. Our time together shaped both of us, and at the same time did not erase either one of us.   And that was just fucking magic to me.  

Since Sandy died, I’ve learned that grief is a constant exercise in what the song calls holding tight, lettin’ go.  Every freaking step forward feels like both, damn it!  Taking off my wedding ring?  Both.  Wearing it on the chain?  Both.  Talking about her keeps me connected to the life we built, while learning to live without her asks me to loosen my grip on the future we were supposed to have together.  Grief does not seem interested in choosing one or the other.  Most days, it simply demands both at the same time, the duality in that just sucks

Maybe that’s why another lyric won’t leave me alone, each day we begin again.  That might be the truest thing I learned in the last few months.  There is no finish line waiting for me out there where grief suddenly makes sense.  There isn’t a morning when I wake up and have it all figured out.  There is just today.  Today I learn something new.  Today I miss her in a different way.  Today, I take another step forward.  And tomorrow, those same three things will be on my list of things to do today again. 

Maybe that’s why I talk about Bride all the time.  Maybe that’s why I feel married to a life we built together.  Not the house, the cars or any of the things.  The life.  The stories, the habits, the traditions.  The thousands of tiny pieces that became who we were.  Maybe that’s why I still catch myself looking for her opinion when something good happens, or when life throws me a curveball and I wish I could hug her tight, hear what she thinks, and know everything will be ok.  No one calls me husband anymore, and that fucking hurts.  But after nearly 40 years of doing love together, I don’t think that part of me simply disappears.  I think it is going to be a big part of the person I carry forward.  I think it just keeps traveling with me, on a road that has no end.