The lunch that started something beautiful

The lunch that started it all with Husband and Carolyn Klassen. Sometimes love happens when least expected, when it can’t happen, and no one is even looking for it. Sometimes, that’s the best way for a love story to happen.

I will always remember Sunday lunch of the August long weekend with special fondness. It was the start of a somethin-somethin with Husband and I…though it wasn’t nearly the start of our romance.

Husband’s wife, Car had died in late winter.

In the months leading to her death, I had asked Car’s sister of how she was doing. I knew the cancer had spread to her bones, and I knew she was fighting hard. And I knew it was terribly hard for them all.

Car’s pastor was my friend, and when the end came close, their pastor spoke of how painful it was to see the end coming for them, and yet how beautiful it was as Car and Husband remained kind and thoughtful to each other and to their visitors until the end.

I went to her funeral.

It was on a Friday afternoon. I wouldn’t have missed it. Her kids had played with and against mine, and Car and I had sat in bleachers together occasionally over a dozen years. I squeezed the service into a busy day. I didn’t stay for the lunch after, as I was leading a Daring Way workshop that weekend and needed to get set up for it.

I remember avoiding extending condolences to Husband at the funeral. I had the same first name as his wife, and shared the same occupation. It didn’t seem kind.

I was alive and she wasn’t.

Several months later, Husband called me at the office.

Small miracle that he and I spoke. Melanie generally doesn’t pass calls onto me directly.

For some reason, unexplainable even to Melanie, she let Husband’s call go through.

He asked me if I would consider taking them on as clients to help them figure out how to talk about their grief as a family.

Gently, as I have had to do so often with friends in the past, I told him that I wanted him and his family to get the best counselling possible. Because I had known her, and had been to the funeral, I had my own personal connection to her. They deserved quality work, and because I too mourned her loss, it was a risk I would not let them take. How could I know if my own thoughts and feelings would get in the way?

By their very nature, one can’t be aware of one’s own blind spots.

I did offer to meet him for coffee, as a friend, to listen. I could give him referrals and resources as a good friend does. I gave him my number and told him to call me if he wanted to take me up on my offer.

I didn’t hear from him.

I assumed he was busy with work and family and had other good supports. I also wondered if he didn’t want to have anything to do with me because I was a single woman and he was now a widower and he would be uncomfortable because it might feel too close to a date.

It was Sunday morning of the August long weekend, months later, that I received a text out of the blue. It was from now-Husband-then-barely-acquaintance, thanking me.

Grounded hope...the understanding that if you take action you can make things better. Quote from Sheryl Sandberg's book, Option B on blog about Husband's and my's first lunch together. He was in the depths of grief those months, waking hours before the sun was up, even in the long days of summer. Lost and lonely. Bereft as he focused on the hole in his life where his dear wife had been.

What he told me weeks later was how, that Sunday morning, he was sitting on a lawn chair in the otherwise empty sun porch early, reading and praying. He was realizing how life had felt all about him for months, as family and friends were supportive and brought meals and flowers and love.

He told me much later, that he got a little tired of himself that morning. Tired of all the sadness and focus on who had died, and how much he had lost.

He got out his cell phone and decided it was time to look out and up.

He determined that it was time to practice gratitude or kindness or something. Time to look up and notice something other than his grief.

My cell number was in his phone from the brief call months prior. He texted me a few lines of appreciation about the teach I had given the previous Sunday in church.

Sometimes, people stop and let me know that something I have said in a talk I have given has impacted them. It’s great to know that the effort put into preparation matters.

In this world of tremendous amounts of great content, it’s gratifying to hear that my voice matters.

I texted back now-Husband-then-barely-acquaintance and thanked him. I reminded him that if he felt it useful, I would meet with him. Our stories were different, but we both had a marriage die, and had to parent children in light of that. He could pick my brain if he felt it would be helpful.

The stars aligned that day. Between us both, every single one of our Junior Tribe Members was at camp, at work, camping, or out with friends. We were both on our own for lunch.

A small miracle.

We met at Stella’s for lunch. Husband got there first and found a corner booth, as hidden as a booth can be at Stella’s.

I asked questions about his late wife. He told many stories about her life, then about her illness, and then about her death. He talked about his grief, and his lostness. He spoke of how he wished he could have done more. He was so open, almost desperate, to tell stories about her.

He told of her kindness and goodness. How he missed so much of her. He described his life now as colourless, drained of all vividness. Scenes of greys in his life. He spoke with relief that she was no longer feeling the aches that had been in her cancerous bones for years, and the acute pain that had plagued her for months.

He knew, in his head, that he would emerge from the most intense grief after many months or a few years—his daughter’s death had taught him that.

He had the incredible ability to miss her terribly, while also still seeing her as flawed and fully human.

Their story was beautiful.

He didn’t tell their story like it was perfect, just real…which was why it seemed so beautiful.

And then, to my surprise, at that lunch in the middle of his sorrow, he asked about me. And not just the parts that would help him have tips for his own struggle. He asked about me. He asked detailed questions about my life, my work, the end of my marriage, and my children.

He asked questions well beyond what was required to be polite or useful for his purposes. It’s a remarkable thing for a grieving person to create a conversation that is truly caring about the other, but he did.

This was one more reason I knew he was a remarkable person, even that first day of talking to him.

At some point in the meal, he held up his left hand, and used his thumb to point out his fourth finger, saying clearly: “I have a ring on. I am still a married man. You need to know that.”

i.e. This is not a date, Carolyn.

I knew it. Clearly. I let him know that I understood it and saw it that way too. I’ve been in the counselling business long enough to know that dating someone while they are still consumed by someone else just creates a recipe for hurting.

We each paid for our own meal, so as to make the point very clear to both of us.

We each went our own way from Stella’s. I looked at the time…it was after 5. We had met at 1.

Lunch was over 4 hours.

Where had the time gone?

I phoned a good friend, L., that day to be accountable. I told her that I had a four hour lunch with a newly widowed man turned friend.

Sometimes, we need our people who can be blunt and real, and say what we need them to say.

To help us get our head screwed on straight, when we are blown away and life is slightly askew.

I knew I needed to be transparent…so I told her that I found he had the most captivatingly beautiful baby blue eyes that felt dangerous to look into for any length of time.

She said what I needed her to say. She said what I expected her to say. L. said the things that I hoped she would say when I called her:

He’s still in love with someone else. He will be for a long time. He might be a great guy, but he’s not a great guy for you. He has a lot of recovery to do. He is vulnerable right now. You need to make sure you don’t misunderstand his open conversation as anything other than his desperate need for support in his grief. Back away from what you are tempted to think. Don’t go there.

I thanked her and told her that was what I was looking for. I told her that I might call her again for the same message.

I knew she was right. That’s why I called her. I knew that he was a lovely man who was lonely, but wasn’t ready for a relationship.

I knew what a train wreck relationships could be when they were begun too soon, or on the rebound. I had a lovely life, and had no interest in being devastated.

That was the Sunday of the long weekend in August. The start of a beautiful friendship.

Let me be perfectly clear: It’s lovely to be a single woman getting to know the man who would become her future husband when she knows there is no way the relationship can ever turn into anything romantic.

There is no flirting.

No wondering.

No need to impress him by doing one’s hair or putting on makeup.

No game playing.

It’s beautifully simple.

Genuine friendship that isn’t going to go anywhere creates a freedom to relax and be authentic. To simply enjoy a conversation on the phone or on a walk as a friendly visit. It felt great to hold the connection lightly and loosely because it isn’t and can’t be anything.

If anybody would have told me that we would be already married a year later, I would have told them they were absolutely nuts.

But they wouldn’t have been nuts.

They would have been accurate.

But that’s another story.