First Love Loss

I finished a book this weekend, just in time for Book Club on Monday. I'm not going to tell you the name of the book, as I may spoil some of it and I would hate to ruin a book for a reader. And I'm not going to write a book review either. I simply want to relate the connection to this post, because the story led me to a memory of my own. The novel had emotional highs and lows as all good books do. But ultimately, two of the characters found comfort and healing in each other, after they both experienced the untimely loss of their great loves. In the end, they come together in a new love.

When I was a young mother, about 29- years-old, one of my cousins died of cancer. He was young too, in his early thirties. Like my husband and me, he and his wife had been together since high school. She was head over heels for him, and even stuck it out through his brief restless period before he proposed. They had two children together, and the youngest was about the same age as my son when my cousin lost his battle. His death struck me hard. It was the first time someone in my life had died an untimely death. Of course losing a loved one is never easy, but as your grandparents age for instance, you're not necessarily taken by surprise when you get the news. It hurst, but it's one of those things you knew would eventually come. A cousin only a few years older than you dying of cancer leaves you awestricken. At least it did me.

I was fixated on this idea that his daughter was the same age as my son. All I could think about was how devastated my cousin's wife must have been. I thought it inconceivable to lose my husband so young, and to raise my three-year-old by myself. For him not to have a father. And she had two children. I wept at the thought. And while I grieved my own loss, I found myself increasingly obsessed with how my cousin's wife would survive without the love of her life. How in the world could she move on? Would she be alone for the rest of her life? These questions muddled my brain because I thought for sure she was heartbroken beyond repair, that she would never marry again. She couldn't ever love anyone like she did her first love. Looking back, I guess I was quite naive.

A couple of years later, not many, my mom got word through one of my cousins (a sibling of Robert, the one who passed) that his wife was getting remarried. I was floored, maybe even a little irritated. It seemed so soon. They were soulmates, high school sweethearts. (You think I was projecting?) Then I learned the details. She had been in a bereavement group since my cousin died, and that's where she met the man she was going to marry. I know it's none of my business, and I know I have no right to pass judgement, but hearing the details put me at ease. The man who she married had four kids of his own, and he had lost his wife and their mother a few years prior. Now we all kidded, they were going to be the Brady Bunch.

Later as I processed the whole situation, I realized what bothered me. The youngest of my cousin's children was so young, she would have no real memory of her father. My cousin. Of course her big brother would tell stories, of course her mom would assure her through photos how much he loved her. But her new husband would be the only daddy she would know, and that made me sad. Somehow knowing her new husband lost his wife, and the children their mother, made me relieved because I knew my cousin's memory would be honored. The same with the children's mother.

And as an adult, I can now understand how those who have lost their spouses must find great comfort in meeting someone who knows the feeling of such great loss. It seems as though there would be more effort to keep the memory of the deceased parent alive, because both families had similar experiences. I wonder if the love is the same kind of love, or if there is a mutual understanding that the love is a second love. Kind of like, I can't ever love someone the same way I loved my first husband/wife, but it's okay because it is that way for both of them. I hope to never find out.