Out of The Void, Into The Dating Pool
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Hi guys, it's Nora. If you like what we've done here on Terrible Thanks for Asking, you might want to check out our YouTube channel. We have two new videos going up every week over at youtube.com slash at feelings A-N-D co. That's feelings and co. There's a link to it in our show description. So see you over on YouTube if that's what you're into. What a sales gal I am. Um, how are you?

Most of us say fine or good, but obviously it's not always fine. And sometimes it's not even that good. This is a podcast that gives people the space to be honest about how they really feel. It's a place to talk about life, the good, the bad, the awkward, the complicated. I'm Nora McInerney, and this is Thanks for Asking.

Imagine for a moment, just a moment, that you're married for 40 years to the love of your life. She dies and you have to figure out how to live without her. Now imagine that you call me and I try to hook you up with my mom for a long distance relationship. That's what happened with today's caller. His name is David. You might remember him from our episode called The Void, where he walks us through his very, very, very fresh grief.

The last time we heard from David, his wife, Marion, had been dead for not even a year, and he was describing living without her. This call, we catch up with David. We talk about what it's like to date when you're over 60 and a widow. And yeah, I try to get him to at least email my mom. Hi, David. It's Nora McInerney.

Well, Laura, long time no hear. How are you? I'm doing okay. Sorry, I was having some technical difficulties. It was a challenge to make a phone call today. That was this morning's challenge for me. Okay. I'm a little confused. You live out in Phoenix, right? I do. Yeah. Okay. But are you still using the Minneapolis number? Yeah. Once I get a phone number, I never let it go.

I know my daughter's been in Brooklyn for years, so she still has a 617 area code number. Yeah, once you're attached to a phone number, it's hard for me to let it go. Yeah.

Well, we started a few some years ago with The Void. I know. Of course, The Void's still here, but of course I'll always be here. Yeah, well, you know, I did some foolish things like get into dating. And I just decided to, I just came up with a decision to...

put it on long pause. Long pause. I was recalling, you know, my father-in-law died at 68. He had a ruptured order. So I

I'm curious, after that, I asked Mary, that was my wife, you know, hey, is your mom going to do a dating? She came in with an emphatic, no effing way. In other words, she was a one-man woman. And I kind of thought about that and I said, you know,

I think that's, I'm a one woman man. Yeah. And, and no matter how much, you know, it's nice to meet other people and things, but you know, and maybe it's, I don't think it's wrong to say this, but I'm still married to Marion. I don't think that's wrong to say at all. Yeah. I don't, I don't think that's wrong to say at all. Believe it or not, this is,

Believe it or not, there's some women out there. I have one woman say to me, I don't want to compete against a corpse. Jesus. What a way to put it. Wow. I wish you could see my face. Yeah.

Yeah, well, there's some people out there. I've met a few people that are really nice. You know, something was always wrong. If it was a nice person, if we decided to get physical, there was something wrong there. If it was emotional, intellectual, you know, you name it. Something was always wrong. Yeah. And it's just, all I did was

put myself in for big dose of frustration. Yeah. And it's, it's not hurtful. Well, especially if you've spent, if you've spent a lot of time, like you spent your, you know, pretty much the entirety of your adult life with Marion and, you know, that's like all the versions of you have been touched by her, you know, like it's, it's, I do think that would be, I think that would be really challenging. I, I,

And I still feel, even though I'm remarried, I love Matthew. I do still feel like I'm also married to Aaron. Well, yeah, but you're much younger than I am. Yeah, yeah.

And so I understand. Of course you feel that feeling for your husband. I think when you... I'm 76 now, so... Are you kidding? You know how long it took? I mean, even when we started to live together, we were still building that love. It wasn't really...

You know, it took a while. And, you know, it's just something you can fall in love again. Yeah, love is rare. It is rare. You know, like it's I always feel like it's a lot of luck to fall in love.

Well, my mom is about fate and I think she's kind of right about that. Yeah. I think, yeah, I do think there's something about it that feels like fate. Um, what were, uh, besides somebody saying they didn't want to compete with a corpse, what were some of your dating experiences like? Uh,

A few years ago I actually Continued to go out with a woman For about four or five months Why? I don't know It didn't get anywhere You know And at that time I was only a few years out And And this woman Had been booed out herself For six years And she hadn't gone out with anyone Oh But she had some She had a little Kind of support She was looking for

that I couldn't give her. And then,

I didn't like the fact, I had the woman said she wanted to compete against the corpse. I also had a few other women that didn't even want to hear about them getting married. It's like, I don't get it. I just got up and I said, that's it. Bye. It's kind of like saying they don't want to hear about your wife. Yeah.

No, no, no. I didn't want to get into my life. No, I'm saying like, if you don't want to hear about someone's like dead wife or dead husband, like that, that that's like saying you don't want to know anything about their life because you know, that, that person, Marion was like a huge, huge, huge, huge part of your life, like your entire life. Well, but yeah, but, but I, okay. Uh, but in the beginning I did make mistakes. Like I wanted, in fact, I tried to counter, um,

I've been talking about Marion, but I say, oh, shut up. You tell me about yourself. I won't say anything, which was kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I never intend to spend the entire conversation talking about Marion. But if I say things like, oh, we should go to this

restaurant here or yeah this is why we sit down yeah what's wrong with that yeah you know so yeah that's all I'm saying yeah I'm on your side on this one well I was going to have you on my side but you know I'm just thinking like geez maybe I don't

I'm doing a lot of studying and thinking courses online and that's how I'm trying to like that's what I'm getting involved in but you know from meeting women I think I need a

at least a long break. Yeah. Where are you meeting these women? Well, of course, you go to the dating sites. Well, the pandemic helped out greatly because I used to refer to COVID dates. In other words, you went for a cup of coffee or you just want to walk separately from them and there really wasn't anything else to do. But

Yeah, and I was thinking to myself, well, you know, fate has been both good and bad to me. So maybe I just let old fate do what it wants and we'll see.

What are you studying right now? What kind of classes are you taking? Well, I'm mostly in Jewish studies. In fact, I did a course on first century Judaism and early Christianity, which I want to delve into more. Yeah, I took a course from the guy who's a professor of Jewish studies at Holy Cross in Worcester.

And so in some other subjects that I did take, so it's that –

That's been good. I mean, Mondays were turned into learning days. And these are also starting to end the pandemic on courses on Zoom. As a matter of fact, it's something I prefer now. I get lazy. Once you don't have to leave your house, trying to leave it gets a little harder, I have to say.

Yeah, well, I don't want to be permanently stuck to the theater, but, you know, it's just a community. And then I've got another course coming up in Talmud in March. So, yeah, and then I was thinking, like, geez, do people still do, you still do podcasts? Yeah. People still do them. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I was thinking about doing one.

Romance in the 70s But I mean age 70s Oh yeah I don't know Yeah I want to listen to that Well I'll see You've been at this For quite a while so Yeah but I mean You know Trust me Anyone can do it Like

Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. So, I don't know. Yeah. I'd say, well, my immediate goal is to get my taxes out of the way. Oh, God. Yeah. Forgot about that. Oh, no, no. We had, no, it's, it's much easier. You know, the first, it took Marion, God bless her memory. She wasn't a mismanager of finances, but she worked for herself as a psychologist. And so she didn't,

pay quarterly. Oh, damn, Marianne, you've got to pay quarterly. God. No, well, she fell behind in reporting. Yeah. And so it took me like three years with the help of a good accountant to get through this stuff. And so now I finally, I think I've got it. You know, a lot of people think the IRS will never get you. They work slow. Yeah, don't worry, they'll get it. They'll get their money. Okay. Yeah.

Well, maybe Trump will get the IRS and then we're going to worry about it. Good God. I mean, I'm a little bit I'm a little bit of a Marian. Matthew, thank God for Matthew, because now he does all of that because I was so disorganized. And he was like, did you ever invoice for this? And I was like, oh, no, no. Oops. Oops. Did you pay your quarterly taxes? I'm like, I feel like I did.

And then, so now he's in charge of all that because, you know, we need...

self-employed people do need a person who is organized and can do that stuff. Well, you know, it's my fault for letting it be the chance with Dick Shecker. That was a little joke. I mean, like I say, she wasn't, she didn't mismanage money, not at all, but... Yeah, she's just, you know, she had other things on her mind, okay? We have other things, we have other strengths. Yeah.

Yeah, of course. She had plenty of them. But we had this inheritance coming. And I was kind of like, I remember dropping a payment off at the post office. It was another one of those moments when I'm in a car. I think you remember when we did our broadcast at

I looked at her passenger seat and I smiled. Well, I looked at the passenger seat and I started laughing. I said, she thought about Margo's money. And she thought, oh, we'll pay it off. It'll be fine. Oh, yeah. Sunday. Yeah. Be great. Yeah. Don't worry about it. I'm not sweating it. Okay.

So, you know, like she knew me, but I knew her too. And that's why I was on those times where empty passenger seat where I'm smiling and laughing and people think I was crazy. Yeah. I feel that sometimes in the car. Like I drove by this place that I used to go with Aaron. I was in Minnesota. Yeah.

For a work trip and I was driving up north past, you know, where his grandpa had what they called the ranch, which is this like little piece of land and, you know, where Aaron used to have parties. And I like drove by it and I swear to God, I felt him in the car with me. Like it just felt like fruit, like I like I could feel him.

In the car with me as I passed the ranch. It was so cool. Oh, I go to the beach. I go to the beach where we used to go to beach all the time. You know, she's there. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, so some people laugh at me. I mean, I've had an instance where I fell safe in my chair and I got four taps on my right shoulder. Oh, wow.

Oh, I love that. It's just her saying hi. It's her saying time to wake up, bud. Don't nap all day.

Yeah. I don't know what I believe, but I do think they're around. You know, I think they're around. Not as ghosts, but I think there's like, you know, some sort of like collective consciousness.

that they join and, you know, I think they're okay on the other side. I think that all the suffering is here. I think if there's a hell, we're in it now.

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Hi guys, it's Nora. If you like what we've done here on Terrible Things for Asking, you might want to check out our YouTube channel. We have two new videos going up every week over at youtube.com slash at feelings and co. That's feelings and co. There's a link to it in our show description. So see over on YouTube if that's what you're into. What a sales gal I am.

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My daughter seems to think my wife has turned into a bee that buzzes around them. I told her, I said, I don't want to be a bee. Yeah, I don't want to be a bee. So, yeah. So, you know, there's, you know, we also, that was something we didn't mention before a couple of years before Marion's clover storm had stepped up.

We lost our son a lot. It took his life. So we had our share here. Yeah, more than your share. And Shusha's really had it. She's a single mom and stuff.

So anyways, um, no, I tried to send an email to you a couple of times. I knew it. And it sort of sunk into. Oh, really? Yeah. So. Well, I'm a mess. I will, uh, I'll, I'll find you and I'll, I'll email you cause I'm recording this. I don't want to put my real email out there for everybody. I'll give you the real email, but no, no,

I have the weirdest thing to say to you, David, but I do think, and I know you've listened to the podcast, so I know you're, you're aware, but, um, I think not romantically necessarily, but I think you and my mom would really get along.

Like she's a, she's smart. She's interesting. You know, she was with my dad for 40 years. This woman can write, this woman likes to write an email. This woman likes to correspond. Uh, this woman reads, this woman's got a brain. And I just think that you guys would be good. Like pen pals, friends. I don't know. Are you trying to fix me up? A little bit, a little bit. Okay. Okay.

There had to be many people. Okay. Maybe I am. Why not? Maybe I am, David. All right. Would that be so bad? Would that be so bad? No. Okay. No, no, no, no. No, I didn't say, I didn't say I don't want to have anything to do with women entirely. Yeah, you just got to take a break from dating and, you know, like.

I love the East Coast. I think my mom is pretty, pretty staunchly a Midwest person. But, you know, I don't know. I just think it I think you guys would have good conversations. That's all I'm going to say. She's also a lifelong learner. She's interesting. I'm just going to put that out there.

I'm going to share her email with you. I don't know. I just think you guys would have a lot to talk about. And you're both like really, you're both really great. So that's just one woman's opinion. It's my opinion. But no pressure. No pressure. I'm going to tell all your fans, he's still here. The void is still here. Is it more bearable than the last time we spoke? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That was still fresh. It was so fresh. I mean, it's always, you know, I don't, you know, it's always there. Yeah. But it was really fresh. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's I think it's.

When I look back at, you know, those really fresh moments and I have like, you know, various artifacts of that time. I have journals. I don't have a lot of video. I don't have any audio of that time, but it's, it's like visiting another planet almost because when you're in it and you're in kind of like the thick of grief and loss, when you are in the void as you were, um, it feels like that's all you're ever going to feel. Yeah.

And it was so I was thinking about this this morning because now it's, you know, now it's been 10 years. So now I can think about, OK, where I was 10 years ago. I was such a man. I was just such a wreck. I was such a wreck. And I really didn't know it. This may be the fifth anniversary. I'm thinking she was a school psychologist for her career. I'm trying to.

What I should do is try to have a seminar or something, put in her name, you know, subjects dealing with special education kids. Yeah. She tested 20 gazillion Asperger's kids. Yeah, yeah. You know, but it's easier said than done. But I have...

try to reach out and contact the people. There is a National Association of School Psychologists. Yeah. And there's also a Massachusetts Dormitory. And, you know, by the way, I'm a UA grad, you know. I did not know that. Okay.

A wild cat. Bear down. Bear down. Bear down. Still doesn't make any sense to me, but you know. Are they wild cats or cat bears or something or bear? I thought it was wild cats, but they say bear down?

No, Bear Down is like Bearing Down. It was when I, the origin of that to some, if I remember this wrong time ago, it was somebody on the University of Arizona at the turn of the century. And he wrote this fight song. It's what it was, it was a fight song.

In fact, I turned, I tried my hand rewriting the lyrics into a X-rated called Bite Down. So, yeah, but, you know, and then there was like, I remember the Saturday night's going to a football game and they had this one night where they had every high school band in Arizona on the field with the U of A band and playing a giant beer.

Beardown, Arizona. Coming from Boston, this was like, I loved it, you know? And going from Boston to Tucson, Arizona, that's a big change. That's like going to another planet. Well then, and this is like the 60s.

The first week I was there, I was crying. I looked like someone had dropped me on the set of Ozzie and Harriet. I couldn't believe it. Fraternities and sororities. And then I ran into some guy who

He said, you want to go for a drive? I said, sure. He had this weed that was soaked in peyote. Oh, my God. I was stoned for four days. Fortunately, I came down in time for class. I didn't leave for four years. Oh, my God.

Oh, I love it up there. So listen, Nora. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Tell all the women out there. I will. And your mom. OK, fine. No problem. Yeah. My mom is so interesting. She's cool. She is. I don't know. I think she's great. And I don't know. You could at least have a great conversation.

Okay. Yeah. No problem with that. All right. I have no problem. All right. Well, David, we'll talk soon. I'm going to email you my mom's email address. Okay. You take care. Bye.

Okay, that call was really special. The last time we talked to David, his wife, Marianne, the love of his life had really just died. And the episode that we made with him was called Into the Void because when we spoke to him, he spoke so beautifully of loss as like, as the void, right? This void that he was adjacent to that was with him at all times.

all times. It was so beautiful. I loved that episode. Marcel Malakibu had the beautiful idea to just let David talk, to just let that episode be him. In the past, our podcast was a lot of narration, a lot of sort of driving a story forward. And that episode was so different for us. And it remains a favorite. I'm sure it's a fan favorite too, because it's almost like a grief journal.

And hearing David's voice again, we've kept in touch. We email. He's a subscriber to the podcast, even in this iteration. So thank you so much, David. But it's so good to hear his voice. You've talked to a million widows, right? You haven't heard the story of grief because grief is different for everybody. Widowhood is different for everybody. And his experience as a

an older man is so different from mine. My mother and I were widowed within six weeks of each other. My mom lost her husband of nearly 40 years. I lost Aaron and I had been with him for four years, married for three. She lost her entire past. I lost my entire future. Those were really, really different losses. I am remarried. David's not, my mom's not. Yes, I am trying to match them up. You heard it here.

And I do think that it would have been harder for a lot of reasons for me to have the life that I have now if I had been older. It's a totally different experience. It is. And yeah,

Yet I do still feel some of the things that David is describing. And I know I felt them when I was at the five-year mark versus the 10-year mark as well. But I do still feel like I am married to Aaron, even though I am married to Matthew, who is alive. I will say that in my experience, having never done polyamory with two alive people, it's a lot easier when one of them is dead.

This morning, not knowing that I was about to have this call this morning, earlier this morning, I was talking with Matthew and I said, God, I forget that you and Aaron weren't friends. Sometimes the way that I think of both of my husbands is that they were friends and I met...

through them. Like they have their own history together. And I think that because while they're so different personality wise, they have so many of the same interests and because, and we're doing a whole other episode, Invisible Strings, Aaron and Matthew are

were undoubtedly in the same rooms as each other. Rooms that I never would have been in because I am not into the music that they are into, by and large, I should say. That has always been a comfort to me knowing that these men that I love so much, like in their young adulthood, their teenagerhood, that they were at the same concerts, that they had the same interests. And

That does mean a lot to me, but that was a wonderful update from David. So that's David Cherson from Into the Void. That episode is what I actually think we're going to end up doing is, you know, what we're going to do is we're going to play the rest of David's episode right here.

And this is now an update. I thought this was just going to be one random call, but now we actually have an update episode. So stay tuned. After the break, you are going to hear the original episode with David into the void recorded just after he lost his wife, Marion.

You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries.

You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first. If you have your spouse in your mind and your heart, that doesn't mean, oh, well, you know, screw the present. I'm Nora McInerney, and this is Terrible Thanks for Asking. Grief has this way of forcing us into a world we didn't choose, and a world from which we have no escape.

It's like being washed out to sea. There on the shore are all the pieces and players of your old life watching from dry land. Maybe the waves of your loss will lap at their ankles. Maybe they'll swim out to try to see you or save you. But there's a part of this sea that is yours and yours alone. The universal experience is also as unique as every person who experiences it. And if I have learned anything,

From my own ocean and from dipping my toes into the experiences of others, it is that our grief needs a witness. Inside every loss is a story that longs to be told. Inside every griever is a nearly uncontrollable urge to make the people around us understand what we had and what we have now. In 2020, David's wife, Marion, was diagnosed with glioblastoma.

It's a word I only know because I had to look it up when my husband Aaron was diagnosed in 2014. And it's a word that is just shorthand for a horrible, aggressive, incurable brain cancer. David and Marion had been together for 39 years when Marion died two months after her diagnosis. And nearly a year after Marion's death, David wrote me this email.

I was just referred to your 2018 TED Talk on moving on. Our situations are similar, but not exactly 100%. And I'm 72. My wife was the older woman by five weeks. It was kind of an annual joke with us that all our birthdays followed each other. Marion also died of a glioblastoma, although she only lived a bit more than two months. She had suffered a stroke in between her two surgeries.

And in one of these ironic moments of life, one person suggested to me that Marin was lucky in going fast. And I thought to myself, I don't know how to respond to this. I'm lucky? I get what you mean by moving on and going forward. Right now, I am two months away from the first anniversary of Marin's passing. And I've analogized my life since then to a sine wave in electronics, up and down, up and down, etc.,

At the beginning, I was too devastated to think about much. Mary and I were together for about 39 years. I often said if it wasn't for meeting her, I wouldn't have ever been married and I would have become some sort of curmudgeonly bachelor. So like other widowed people, I first recognized that I have to manage the void that is always with me.

I remember driving one day up to the North Shore and looking at the empty passenger seat beside me and realizing that fact. Actually, it was satisfying to come to that realization. So I know what you mean in relation to moving forward. For me, that just means that I'm managing to live my daily life, nothing more. No, that does not mean a break from Mary and our life together. I always repeat the mantra that she will always be in my heart and mind.

but will also have to coexist with my present and future. That's all. That's all? Just that big, huge task to live your present and your future while holding your past? David's email wasn't asking me for a conversation or asking me to interview him. He was just reaching out. He was looking for a witness to where he was and what he was holding.

He had an experience similar to mine and so, so different. So this episode, we're asking you to be a witness to a story that is fully unique and painfully universal. Two people fall in love. Two people build a life together. One person dies and the other has to live without them. This is David and Marian's love story. We met, we were in our early 30s.

She happened to come into a synagogue that I started attending and I just noticed her from a distance. The second time we actually did meet, we were attending a speaker or a meeting. She made it kind of obvious she wanted to meet me. Took the seat next to me and started mentioning a few things. In any event, after that I said, "You want to go out for a drink?" She said, "Yeah."

And we get to talk more. It turned out that both our fathers were butchers. Well, hers was a bit different than mine. But, you know, we had something in common. And, you know, I told her, I said, I'll give her a call tomorrow night. And she figured that, you know, most guys say things like that and they never do call you again. But I did. I never really had much experience in terms of having long-term girlfriends. I didn't.

In fact, my family had given up on me. You know, the thing was, they said, David's not programmed to be married. Well, anyways, my other siblings were married during what my orphanage referred to as normal age, you know, in the 20s. But no, I, through my teen years, I was very shy. And I didn't get over that until I was in my 20s, you know, recognize the other gender. Yeah.

But that's, you know, it took a long time for me to find someone. But David did find someone. And by the third date, for David at least, it was a done deal. All together, we were together for almost 40 years. That's quite a long time. We would always go out. You know, I mean, you know, we always, whether it's movies, go out to eat, they always like to do that. We, um,

We weren't people who just stayed at home all the time. And we'd do things on our own. I mean, apart from each other, too. So we were cool. Like, she had an avocation of arts and craft. You know, she was always going to craft shows. And she also had an attitude towards fashion as art. She was someone that, you know, didn't think that it was not highbrow or something. She'd be interested in fashion.

And she considered it a part of art. And once in a while, I would actually sometimes go to a craft show with her. We had a way of, we had a strategy. I would take a couple of turns around the exhibitions with her, and then I would have a book with me.

And we'd have our phones and say goodbye. You know, that was it. You know, she could, because she could spend forever. And I'd go off and read my book. And, you know, afterwards, you know, when she had satisfied, satiated her, you know, interest or bought some things, you know, and then we got together and, you know, left the show. So there were things that we, a lot of things we did together and a lot of things we did in our own.

She had no interest in sports, but she tolerated my interest in sports. You know, she always knew I was a big hockey fan. And sometimes she'd even sit in the same room with me if I was watching a game, but I had to sound off. That was a compromise anyway. And, you know, I didn't care because...

I got tired of listening to the announcers and their BS and everything. I know what's going on. No one ever told me. You know, so I just watch it. It really was what we want to think of as a marriage of two people. People might have thought we were opposites, but in reality, we weren't so opposite when it came down to life itself. How else were you and Marion different?

She talked a lot more than I did. Even though we didn't share identical politics, she was always open to discussing everything. You know, like she was a big Facebooker and she would get involved with people who were Trump supporters and have civilized discussions with them. I can't. OK, but, you know, she could.

And I always say to people, we ought to take a page out of her book and maybe society would be a lot better off. And more often than not, we saw eye to eye on the real issues of life. I don't mean the politics, you know, but getting along together, raising a family.

you know, our outlook on morals and our same outlook on, you know, or even God, what if I bring that up? But she was genuine, you know. I used to call her an idealist. I have a thing about idealists. She was idealistic in some ways, which I wasn't. I've had experiences in my life that

you know, turn me off, particularly in people in groups. Sometimes it would be, have more of a hard-bitten view of people, you know, that, and she would have a more hopeful view, you know. She was an idealist, but she didn't let her idealism carry her away.

David and Marion have a longish, happy life together. There are craft shows and family gatherings and hockey games on TV. The two of them find their groove and they work through the same things all couples work through. And they grow together, they grow up together. And then one day, 39 years after that first date, they're sitting on the couch. We're watching one of our British mysteries. I notice in our eyes, trying to find for a minute,

They seemed opaque, and then it went away. David notices that something's wrong, but it happens so quickly, he just kind of moves on and forgets about it. And then a month later, Marion starts to complain that her tooth hurts, so she makes an appointment with their dentist and gets in the car to head out. And what happened was, instead of going to the dentist, she took a right turn towards the town where she did a lot of her work, and she got in an accident, which totaled our car.

And the EMT said she looked a little wobbly. They're going to take her up to a local hospital. The doctors look her over and decide that Marion's okay. No broken bones, nothing evidently majorly wrong. So they discharge her after about an hour, and Marion and David head home together. And for a few days afterwards, Marion is complaining about muscle soreness. She was in an accident, so I didn't think it was strange that she...

complaining about muscle soreness or anything like that. But then the next couple of days, she was complaining about being so tired that she was having trouble getting out of bed. And this accident happened on Tuesday. And by that Saturday, she said to me, I don't feel good. We better go to the hospital. And, you know, I took her to the ER. And that's when they decided to do a CT scan and MRI on her. And then they found the tumor.

there was fluid that developed around the tumor. And we tried the catheter with dexamethasone, which is a cousin of prednisone, but it didn't work. So the surgeon asked her, we bring her back to the hospital and put a drain in her. And she basically was suffering a stroke. And if you've ever been around people who are suffering a stroke, their personalities change completely.

She was angry. She started yelling at me, and she was also losing her balance. I had a friend of mine, and that Friday morning, we practically had to take her hostage and bring her back to the hospital. I'll tell you, from the second week of having the glioblastoma, I knew what I was up against. So I went and did what I called the death stuff. What's the death stuff?

I got a double plot, a cemetery. I set up the funeral because I knew, you know, sooner or later, she's going to die. The prescribed length of life for people with glioblastoma is supposedly 12 to 14 months. But I think the fact that she also suffered a stroke sort of cut that back. She spent basically the next two months in the hospital.

The treatment for glioblastoma has not changed much in the past decades. It is brutal, truly, and it's also the only options that you have. It's surgery, it's chemo, and it's radiation. You know, I sometimes get mad at myself, but a lot of people say they couldn't blame me. I insisted they try radiation with her. And when I look back upon this, and she was really terrified. When you just do MRI of your skull,

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It has never been easy to lose the person you love, to brain cancer or any other way. But Marion is dying in 2020. Originally, they called me from the rehab center and said, how would you like to come down and meet with Marion downstairs? You keep masks on. I said, sure, you bet. But when I got there, she wasn't up front. They told me we're going to have to put what they call PPE, personal protective equipment,

gear on you, you know, those, you know, gown and mask and, you know, everything. And we went up to her room and I could see she was having a seizure. She looked, it was terrible. And that's, you know, when I called my daughter to tell her to come up here. Basically, she lasted up until about 1.45 a.m. And she was in the hospital. I was living here myself and the dog, you know. The dog was actually her dog, even though I took care of her, took care of her.

I'm left with a dog and not married. I love the dog, but you know, it's not married. In my life, you know, before I was married, you know, I had experience of both here and elsewhere of living on my own. It's that thing I don't promulgate as a lifestyle, but I can deal with it, you know? I'll tell you one thing that stands on my mind about during that time when she was in the hospital and still alive. I really look forward to the evenings.

because i didn't have to talk to any doctors or nurses anymore for the day and i really that was you know that at least could rest my mind for the evening until the next day when you start all over again a lot of people complain about the days being so long i've had the opposite like the time was like especially in the first year time was moving faster you know it's like

I didn't want to go to bed. But I don't know. This is my experience. A lot of people say the second year is worse, and I have to agree with that. I think I was so busy in the first year of clearing up financial stuff and taxes and all that stuff. And all of a sudden, it just felt like more of an impact in the second year. And now we're coming to the close of the second year. As I said...

It's kind of hanging over me for now. Somebody told me, though, that, you know, Mary and I lived a little more than two months. She didn't get the prescribed 12 to 14 months of life that she's supposed to get with a GBM. And he said to me, well, you're lucky she didn't have to live long. And I didn't know how to respond to that. I mean, yeah, in one sense, maybe sure, but lucky? What do you mean lucky? I lost my wife. Lucky, you know. And then there's dating.

I think I made a mistake with dating. I was, as I say, too early. And I pulled back because, you know, it just experiences show me that. Although I can safely say that dating is still dating and the act of dating itself. What I found was this getting beyond the date, you know, and having how to navigate this was really kind of strange to me.

I'll tell you about part of the reason that I did start dating back then was that I wanted to reach out and meet people, just meet people because not only my wife, but a lot of our friends passed away. So, you know, we're kind of down to the part in life. I realized that where, you know, I saw my parents, friends die and they were like missing them. And that's the way I do too. But yeah,

You know, it's meeting the people, you know, getting to make friends. But it can be a pretty complicated process. It's not like we were in the 20s and 30s. It really isn't. You know, you don't want to get married again. But somehow some women say that they want to find the last love. And I just find this baffling. Love is not something that you –

go to a delicatessen and get a quarter pound of love, you know? It really isn't. And marriage is not, you know, in the cards. As I said, I was married. But, you know, to find someone that you could be a companion or special friend, you know, maybe I'll still have someone I can find.

Moving forward, it doesn't mean you have to find a new person. It doesn't mean you need to remarry or find a companion or a special friend. I would like it if we could all go to the deli and order a quarter pound of love, but instead we just have the task of living our lives without the person we had shared our life with. We always talk about the void. And in fact, I realized early on, we like to go to a certain beach in the summer

So after she passed away, I started making a routine sort of on Saturdays just to drive up there, even for his off-season. Matter of fact, I kind of prefer beaches off-season. One time I was driving, you know, I looked toward the passenger seat and I realized, Marion's not there. But I also had an experience in my house where at that time I was still belonging to a bereavement group. And I told the people, I said, you know,

I went from one end of the house to the other and the void seemed almost measurable as if I could have taken a tape measure out and measured it. You know, I wouldn't open her closet door for a long time. And then finally I said to myself, Oh hell with it. I opened the door and I said, huh? You don't scare me. And I closed the door and now I started using the closet. Now I don't, I don't believe in ghosts or anything like that. Um,

And I don't know what there is beyond or there's above us. I wish I could ask Marion, but I can't. One thing I tell to not just younger people, but everybody that's around and they're married or they're with someone, don't ever take anyone for granted, really. Because you never know how life works, how life is complicated. When you become widowed,

It's kind of like now I've told a few friends that now I feel like I'm really up against life. Before, life was kind of this big thing around us, but now it's like I'm up against the wall. That's the way I feel about it, you know. Life can be very trying at times. I never thought that I would be without Marion because we were planning on, you know, our retirement together and taking a couple more trips. But, well, you know.

I'll do a couple trips on my own and maybe my daughter, my granddaughter on a trip and, you know, that's what we'll do what we do. This has been terrible. Thanks for asking. I'm Nora McNerney. I want to thank David for sharing Marion with us and for reaching out. And also...

I don't know, there are a million Davids, there are a million Marians, and also there's only one. And sometimes I just like to listen to stories like this one to remind me of that, to remind me that every person that you meet is carrying their own story, their own version of this. So thank you, David, for sharing that with us.

Our team here at Terrible Thanks for Asking is Marcel Malakibu, our senior producer, Jordan Turgeon, Megan Palmer, Claire McInerney, Larissa Witcher, and Eugene Kidd. We are a production of Feelings & Co., known as F&Co. The F could also stand for flowers. That's not as funny. Honestly, it's not as easy. I am not recording this in my closet. I'm not recording this in my home. I'm recording this at Malakibu Studios in Minneapolis.

In the background, you might hear a rowdy two-year-old who has taken a snooze and is ready to frickin' party. Okay, what does she want to tell you about? Her Moana t-shirt. Okay, she's wearing a Moana t-shirt. She's going to tell you that. She wants to tell you that. Um...

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