I’ve had loss but it was more natural than this one. My parents are both dead, but they lived to their eighties. A few of my friends have died (climbing accidents, drug overdoses, AIDS) but those tragedies were decades ago and, face it, I wasn’t as close to them as I am to family. I almost lost Jonah when he was 13, and that accident was more life-changing for me than any other, but it didn’t make me still. In fact, when I look back on those events now – his near drowning, near-OD, and institutionalization led directly to my involvement with Landmark and Barbara and marriage and move – I’m blown away at the changes they produced. But I don’t think I’ve ever been slowly thoughtful till now.

I met my second Barbara and I married her. I like to be married. I like to be alone in a big house full of people (I’m always alone in my head). We meshed her three kids with my part-time one to two (Jonah was released to me when his term was up, because Barbara the First wouldn’t have him back again unless he promised to attend school, while I understood how toxic school can be). I moved into her house in Concord. I was pretty happy, I think. I thought.

Now my partner is dead. Now I’m 65. I’m about to see Lily again. All of this makes ideas surface like Magic 8 Ball answers floating into the little window on the bottom of the ball. What do I want to do now?

The kids are grown. My younger son is almost finished with college. Barbara’s three are on their own. Not flourishing, true, and often back for food and money, but adult, sexually active, making their own decisions. Her daughter Mary is single now and has four babies. One of Barbara’s sons is a recovering addict employed as a sales rep for copiers and the other will be okay once he figures out what’s important. My stepdaughter Norah is now married and living in the middle of the country. My first wife visits her at least once a year but I haven’t been to see her yet. Jonah is still a challenge but he’s currently in LA.

I’m not happy. I don’t like living alone in 3,000 square feet. I don’t like living alone. I’m not dead yet sexually; I want to establish another relationship. And I’m seeing Lily for lunch tomorrow; I cannot get her out of my head.

She called me after Barbara died. Back when we were together she introduced me to a financial counselor, and I continued the business relationship with Anna after Lily and I broke up. Anna and Lily are still friends and clients of one another; Anna told Lily the bad news and Lily called me. She expressed condolences. She invited me to lunch. I understand the first part. I wonder if the lunch invite is more than just sympathy. I mean, I don’t need a meal. And why feed me just once? What does she want?

What do I want?

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I wrote those words two months ago. While everyone else was advising me to sit tight and make no big decisions, my sister recommended that I start a journal. I wrote the first entry, which took much more paper and much less time than I thought it would, and then I didn’t add to it. Much like Lily’s Adam, apparently. She tells me he started a blog on the Internet, but he only produced one post.

It turns out Lily wanted some sort of reconnection. Not romantic or sexual, at least not yet, but she’s very into clarity and true memories, and she says we spent enough time and had enough significant moments that she wants my help recalling them.

Her attitude about male/female relationships is totally different than mine. It isn’t just that she started early and experimented widely – funny how adventurous I’ve been in just about every endeavor except sex – she’s a bottom-up relator.

That’s not a physical description. I’ve read about political and cultural phenomena, and I’ve learned that they’re either “top-down,” meaning promulgated from on high like law and regulation, or they’re the grass-roots type of “bottom-up” movement. Most people get into relationships by making some level of commitment and then trying to keep it.

Lily doesn’t do it that way. She’s a word person but doesn’t use words for that. She allows relationships to develop and after awhile, she recognizes them for the developed thing they are. So when she or the other person changes, she just rides with it and accepts the consequently altered relationship. She would never break up with a person just because she or the other changed. She’d exhibit some confusion at first, and then accept the changed relationship as it became apparent to her.

I don’t think it’s that she’s not jealous. In fact, I think Lily is the most passionate person I know. But she controls herself, like a proofreader/editor. She seems to feel the heat, wait for awhile, and then exhale cool steam. She used to have some anger issues, but she was 44 when I met her, and she said she’d outgrown the problem by then. Actually, she said she’d learned better. From her son.

Seems like we always talk about sons. Or about what it takes to be a man anyway. Back when we were together my Jonah nearly died. He was a troubled kid and I was too stubborn to recognize it. I guess I saw him as a mini-me. And I’d been a difficult kid too, but my problem came from a bad school coupled with my own ADD (now called ADHD). I never had low self-esteem. And after my parents put me in the private school I did pretty well.

So when Jonah acted up I figured it was bad school. I even supported him when he got caught cutting classes. At 13. I saw the similarities but I was blind to the differences. He was trying to be a grownup: smoking and picking up an STD and doing the Goth bit to the point of mascara and black fingernails. At 13. Geez: at 13 I was like a 9 year old…