Yet another rambling and too long personal story

I was listening to NPR on the way back from the gym earlier this evening and they were broadcasting an interview & discussion with Lupe Fiasco about his skateboarding anthem “Kick, Push”. It was originally recorded at the time the song was first released, which they mentioned was in 2007. I was flabbergasted that is has been going on ten years since that song was released. Still feels like it was yesterday to me. Fucking time, man.

It’s past midnight now here in Central Standard Time which means it is officially February 19th. Four years ago on that date I had a seven & half hour long best first date of my life with the woman I eventually married and still am completely head over heels in love with to this very day, which is now just shy of three months since the divorce was finalized; and going on nearly seven months since we last saw each other in person. Fucking time, man. Fucking life. Gives and takes away.

I didn’t even bat an eye at Valentines Day, but this anniversary is going to be so much harder to deal with. I had never even had an anniversary with anyone before her. My previous longest relationship had been 11 months. Back in high school. Which doesn’t and shouldn’t count. 

When I was 19 I had an internship with the community theatre in my hometown where I had done my first play at age eight and been active in the years following. I co-directed a version of the David Mamet one-act play “The Duck Variations” which was a very un-Mamet like show that featured two elderly gentleman having a mostly quaint but heartfelt discussion about life while sitting at a park bench. Not a F-bomb in the entire script. We worked on it for a long time and advanced through several levels of the play festival competition it was being staged for. 

I had known the two actors in the show for years from being in other plays at the theatre, but now I was an adult and got to know them much better during this time. Mike was one the actors. He was the kind of guy that nobody disliked. Affable, charming, and quirky. A surrogate grandfather to all the young people. He was a retired Navy man, but didn’t seem militaristic at all. Always reminded me of Hal Linden from Barney Miller. Looked like him with the silver hair and mustache and hailing from the Northeast.

He had a daughter from his first marriage that he was close to, she lived in St. Louis but came to visit in Texas frequently. I knew that he had been married at least one more time but divorced before retiring and settling in our town. While we were in production for The Duck Variations I found out that Mike had actually remarried his first wife after his very brief second marriage. I had never met anyone who had done that before. They got divorced again shortly before he retired and came to Texas. 

He spoke very plainly and bluntly about it. Said they both maintained they never stopped being in love with each other, just would get into an extended tiff and separate for a while. He said his second wife was very nice and that he cared for a lot but he just didn’t love his new wife as much as he did his first, apparently the second wife was pragmatic about it and was okay with that, but Mike just didn’t think it was fair so he didn’t stay married to her for very long. I don’t remember much about he and the first wife got remarried. Seemed like it was just inevitable. And yet another tiff and another divorce eventually followed. 

It reminded of that Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger movie “The Marrying Man” which I saw when I was probably too young and only vaguely remember because I haven’t ever seen it again. They played a couple that married, fought, got divorce, and reconciled over and over again throughout the years.

Anyway Mike had a major stroke about a year after my internship was done. He was confined to a wheelchair and limited speech. But was always in good spirits the few times I got to see him after it happened. He lived for about four years after the stroke. And once again it was the woman who was his first and third wife that moved all the way to Texas to take care of and be with him in his final years.

I don’t mean to over-romanticize this story. It certainly has plenty of tragic overtones as well. I often miss Mike, but especially now because I’d like to be able to talk to him at nearly double the age I was then, now looking at the rest of my life with all the uncertainty that lays ahead. I just wonder what he could tell me. What wisdom or advice or warnings he might be able to pass along to me.