Can I Get A Witness?

George with our marriage license in Las Vegas

Up all night and thinking about all that I’ve lost. How can you judge the value of a person? George was the one person I’ve ever known who knew all about me, everything I’ve done and wanted to do, and still admired and liked me. Now that one person, the one person who cared for me completely, is gone.

Once I was at my dermatologist’s office and he made a funny comment that I never forgot. He mentioned that it is very important for everyone to be married. I couldn’t figure out why he would say that and I was pondering it when he said, “Your spouse is the most likely person to keep you from dying of skin cancer. He will notice if you have a melanoma.” Huh. I had thought of many reasons that I wanted to get married and stay married, and that wasn’t one of them. But it speaks to what I am missing right this minute, and that is the person who agreed to be my witness. George stood up and vowed to be the person who would hold all my dreams and fears for me, who would see me at my worst, who would just be… with me.

I was always after him to talk to me. He often did, and every now and then he dug deep. “You want me to tell you my deepest fears,” he complained. And I did. I wanted to know what made him tick. I was endlessly interested in his opinions about things, and often surprised by what he came up with.

You never really know a person, but I got close with George. I watched him cry one night over the death of an old friend. I listened while he told me of childhood disappointments and fears. I was the one he looked for when he came in the house with gossip or news from work. We talked about his job endlessly. When friends did things I couldn’t understand he often offered unexpected explanations for their behavior. From George I learned to think deeply before acting and especially before speaking to a friend who was troubled.  He taught me a lot.

It was hard to get a compliment out of him. He laughed when I bristled at him saying I looked “fine.”

George, Lily and me on March 4, 2002 in Atlanta. He never left the hospital and slept in the bed with me for three nights.

“It’s a compliment, but it’s been overused as a conversational placeholder,” he said. I guess he was right on that one. But when he felt like saying something, you couldn’t stop him. He loved to be proud of me. Lily’s well-planned birthday party, a big month selling t-shirts, a well observed comment or a good hair day could bring a passionate kiss and a heartfelt compliment. Those snatches of total acceptance and admiration were the best, and it taught me that fishing for that kind of attention is a fruitless enterprise because the compliment you get is tied up in duty and resentment. Better to wait for the moment when he felt the love. And if I waited for it, he did feel it.

I loved it when George would describe me to someone else. I always sounded so great! He valued my opinions and my talents and appreciated my loyalty and devotion. There were lots of days that he had nothing particular to say about me, but on the days that he did, I felt absolutely special.

He also tried to care about what I cared about. He was kind to my stepdaughter, Sara, and was always encouraging me to offer her support and advice. He loved my sister Nancy and would extol her better qualities to me regularly. He expected her to live with us during retirement, and that was just fine with him. In fact, we all laughed when he suggested we build a “compound” and all live together, my parents, sister, Sara, his mom, everyone… and as it has turned out that is exactly what we will be doing. “George isn’t going to get to be part of the compound,” my mom said sadly. “It was his idea.”

When you stand in front of a judge, or minister, or priest, or rabbi, or whoever and promise to be with someone until death do you part, you of course aren’t really thinking of the death part. When that word is uttered in the marriage ceremony, you let it skip by. It’s not a good time to consider parting, really not a good time to consider death.

I never really considered parting from George, and as it has turned out we had only ten short years together. Twelve and a half if you consider our first go round. Not that long really. But long enough to know him well, and for him to know me well, the good and the bad. He loved me anyway, and that’s what I’m missing tonight. A man who loved me anyway, bragged on me until I was embarrasessed, kissed me in front of anyone, told the story of our meeting constantly, stared deeply into my eyes while I was having Lily, shared the hospital bed with me after her birth refusing to leave no matter who told him to, spent an hour picking out a Valentine’s Day card every year, wrote me three postcards some 25 years ago, called every night when he was out of town, woke me up to talk when he got home late at night, endured my penchant for adventure, took on my worries, paid our debts and loved my friends and family. He was a great husband.

I miss him.

I want him back.

All that love, all that knowing of each other, gone.

On our honeymoon, Venice Hotel, Las Vegas. A great day.

I can laugh, I can move on, I can live my life. But my witness is gone, the one I picked out of everyone, and somehow it makes me feel invisible and rootless. I’ll figure it out, but tonight I’m feeling very sorry for myself because I had it made and now its over.  Except its not.

Related posts:

1. The Building Begins
2. Gone Daddy Gone
3. More
4. Milestones
5. Who Do You Love?

Tagged as: compound, family, george maddox, grief, husband, intimacy, lisa maddox, love, marriage, new house, SARA BYRD, single parent, widow, witness