Sacred Vespers

I was recently introduced to the Vesper martini, made famous by the James Bond movie franchise. 

Smooth, delicious and sexy – the perfect recipe for a drink and a man.

Think Sean Connery in his tuxedo saying, “Shaken, not stirred,”

Yeah.  Like that.

It conjures a very cosmopolitan and sophisticated vibe which takes any conversation to another level.

I had my first Vesper recently with two women I met last summer at different events who not only know each other, but are also cousins and widows.

They reached out after meeting me and reading this blog wanting to reconnect and share stories about life after our spouses’ death and moving forward.

Our recent dinner was a shared meal of food, drink and deep bonding over loss and a profound question at the end of the night, spurred on by the Vesper.

The conversation meandered through the common experience of widowhood, learning to date again and navigating a whole new world like Jasmin in the movie Aladin sans the magic carpet. 

I think the three of us would agree that a magic carpet would have come in handy on several occasions or perhaps a version of the song Magic Carpet Ride made famous by the band Steppenwolf.

The Vesper cousins and I ate, drank and bonded over:

Loss;

Fear;

Instability;

Heartache;

Sadness; and

Healing.

We talked about how the grieving process is not linear and acknowledged we have all cycled through things repeatedly, leaving us to wonder if progress and healing is underway. 

And, we laughed about how our children wonder if we are okay and talk about us behind our backs on What’s app or other e-platforms?

Yeah, guys, we know about this.

The Vespers and I shared stories about how we have literally thrown ourselves on to freeway of life, in lieu of standing still. Our freeways ranged from dating experimentation, intimacy, loneliness and being alone (very different) and the ultimate acceptance of this permanent reality.

We eventually acknowledged we are healing from the trauma of the goodbye.

We discussed our own personal form of this - the long, slow goodbye, or the quick, die-in-your-sleep one, or the one which requires you to sign papers to pull a plug to end his life.

This is stuff that, if it doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. 

Sure.

We chose the latter and are coming through the other side.

The other side brings a lot of interesting pursuits – the arms of unavailable men, therapy, copious amounts of chardonnay, foreign countries, EMDR, aiowaska, sex, dating apps and whatever presents to soothe our hearts and souls.

After some significant sharing and a lot of affirming exchanges along with alcohol I asked a difficult, and essentially, unanswerable question:

Given all that’s happened, if you met him now, would you marry him?

Of course, there is no possible chance of this happening. Unlike dating, our spouses left us very “cleanly.” There will be no chance encounter, or a sighting on a dating app or social media post, or news from a friend about how that person has moved on without us.

They are simply just gone.

It’s been roughly 1200 days since my husband died.

That feels like a lot of days, but it’s a small window into life.

The Vesper’s grief cycle is on an approximate time frame and we have now booked a lot of days alone, changing our lives one day at a time.

One started dating very early on and had successive encounters with men, eventually burning out. She’s now regrouping, trying to figure out what she’s really looking for long-term.

The other one told me six months ago when I met her that there’s no way she could date, much less go on the “apps”.

She’s now dating several men and was giddy.

And so, again the question:

If you met him now, would you marry him?

It turns out that is not the hardest question.

The harder question is actually even more uncomfortable.

Given all that has happened, have we changed so much that we would no longer be compatible?

To even contemplate this question asks us to look at ourselves now as individuals, no longer part of a couple.

1200 days ago, the answer to either question would have been so easy – no doubt or hesitation.

Now, at that table we shared, we took a pause to further consider this question.

The death has required us to manifest a new life, rediscover ourselves and a way forward.

It does not dim the love we felt and still feel, or the life we shared.

But we have changed.

Over the next few days, I thought about that Vesper martini and the meaningful conversation with these women.  The haunting question and meaning of it all lingered.

Eventually, I decided the answer to that question doesn’t really matter anymore.  Life is what it is as a friend has so often told me.

In older times, monks would be called to Vespers, a time for prayer and meditation.

The time of the Vespers is defined as a concluding time - a point in time near the end of something.

And, as with any ending, the beginning of something new.

It’s exactly where the three of us Vespers find ourselves now - a bit shaken but also stirred to move ahead.