OT Checkin' in on Sunday per request

I am on a roll. My last bad day was a little bit last Thursday, and that wasn't bad and only for half an hour or so. I thought sure that Friday would be a crash and burn day, but it didn't turn out to be so. Saturday I had diner with Beth and Dave to look forward to, and today the walk and concert with Annette. The long-anticipated first encounter meeting and activity with Annette. It could have been a disaster, of course, and she admitted to being quite apprehensive while driving there. I wasn't. I figured a walk in the park and an outdoor bluegrass concert couldn't go too far wrong, and either of us could have scrubbed after the walk and skipped the concert because the walk ended in the parking lot and we both drove there. There might have been no desire on the part of one or the other of us to try any subsequent activities together, but we can't know without trying. Give her credit, she showed up. Me too. Matter of fact, she showed up 25 minutes early and called me to say so. I was just on the way out the door when she called, and I thought I'd be the early one. She thought it would take longer to get there from Andover than it did. She cheerfully admits to being navigationally-challenged. She was animated, talkative, and wide open. She is exactly who she appears to be. Mary would definitely have liked her. She pinged a few times (as in exploring unknown waters with sonar) and found that her talking about her Buck and their relationship and love didn't make me a bit uncomfortable. On the contrary, I enjoyed hearing about it. She obviously enjoyed my accounts and anecdotes about life with Mary too. I thought that the relationship Mary and I had was exceptional. At the Mercy grief group I found that everyone thought their relationships with their "soulmates" were exeptional, but I still thought that ours was exceptionally exceptional -- but who knows. Then both of my grief counsellors, after hearing me describe it with anecdotes, agreed that it probably was exceptional. Not that there's a competition on, just a matter of understanding and perspective. I thought my relationship with my first wife was OK most of the time, but I had no idea how good life could be with the right partner. I really think that Annette had that kind of relationship with her Buck. I never saw them together, but her anecdotes indicate that to me. I think I sensed very early on that she was capable of such a relationship. Not everyone is. I have no idea how I sensed that, but I also sensed something good in Mary within minutes of first meeting her. I was right both times. Annette was open, obviously completely at ease and comfortable, very friendly and very chatty. She enjoyed the walk and the concert, as did I, but I think she enjoyed the conversation even more than the concert, as did I though parts of the concert were pretty good too. The scowly owly old bat in front of us kept shooting sidelong glares at us, but I thought she could always move, and she had no idea how much what was going on behind her meant to both participants. The venue was lawn chairs in a big grassy area in front of a band shell, (the Rog ampitheatre), not exactly assigned seating. Kids running around, a guy with a dog, an errant scooter (with O.F. aboard) that banged into my lawnchair, some folks dancing, it wasn't exactly primly puckered orchestra hall. It was a summer Sunday in Central Park in Roseville, MN. Beautiful park, by the way. Annette was enchanted with it on the walk around the lake and beyond. She didn't seem to want to go as fast as the rest of the group and didn't seem to need the security of being in a group, so we let them pull away from us. I let her set the pace. I am able to keep up with the group but she was plenty of company. When we set up our lawn chairs before the walk (to save a spot) I set mine to the left of Annette's. When we finished the walk and set down her cooler, I noted that she'd switched them. I said that felt different because Mary usually sat to my right. Annette said she wanted the side with the working hearing aid. Good plan! When I have both aids, the right side is the better side because my right ear is least impaired, but the aided left ear is definitely better than the unaided right ear. I'm hoping to become fully-aided again on Wednesday. We talked about Mary and Buck and swapped anecdotes of our lives together with our beloved departed mates, and it was fun and joyful, not maudlin or tearful though we both came close to leaking a little a few times. Lots of smiles and laughter, a few empathetic moments. I have been very lucky with loyal and steadfast friends and family, she not so much. There are some nasty people in the world who see vulnerability as an opportunity and Annette has had to deal with a couple of friends and rellies like that. She stood her ground, by gum! I think if Buck and I had known each other we might have liked each other. He was a contract painter while I hate painting, but it sounds like he treated Annette very well indeed. He liked to shoot and could do so on their land in the woods. He had a carry permit though he didn't usually carry. He liked the outdoors. Their cabin-in-the-woods was just a few miles from Mary's land on Big Sandy. But the thing I heard that was most interesting were the anecdotes that told me that he truely cherished his Annette every day. I loved hearing about those. Yeah, my kind of guy. She talks to him every day. I guess a lot of widows and widowers do that. This is her second time in the barrel. I asked her if the two grief experiences were different. She said oh yes, very different because the husbands were very different. I didn't pursue that one, will let her unfold more if she wants or not if she doesn't. The answer I got suffices for me. I don't care either way, I was just curious. We were comfortable enough with each other after the walk and conversation during the walk that curious was OK either way. We sat in our lawn chairs and conversed long after the concert had ended and most folks had departed. We finally packed up as dusk approached and the skeeters were starting to come out. She said that on the drive down from Andover, with the apprehensive knot in her stomach, she told Buck "now Buck, this isn't a date, it's just an outdoor activity with a group of others on a beautiful summer day" I told her I didn't converse with Mary much these days, but I know what she'd be saying to me: "way to go, Foreman, and be careful." We've both come a long ways since May. I don't think either of us realized how far until today. Her loss was in late February, just weeks before mine, so we're kind of contemporaries on our journeys and we seem to be progressing similarly. She's still working which is a distraction, but going home to an empty house is hard for her. She said last May that cleaning out and closing their cabin was very difficult for her. I'll bet! We both had a really good time. I saw joy in her face today, and I'm sure she saw joy in mine. No one who hasn't experienced the loss of a soulmate spouse can remotely imagine how sweet that is. There will definitely be subsequent activities together and I think a nice friendship might develop. Not a romance, a friendship of fellow travellers. We both have quite a ways to go before romance would make any sense at all, if it ever does. That's not an objective here. It was a good day for both of us. We thoroughly enjoyed each other's company. Next activity will probably be helping her buy a new computer and getting her email working at home again.