My mother, a Southerner who moved North upon getting married in 1975, is pretty bad about staying in touch with people. Even since the advent of social media, she has yet to partake and this has led to her finding out about the fate of old friends long after they occur. She claims that she would rather not know what happened because it is too painful, but inevitably she always seems to find out anyway. Recently she found out a good friend from her youth had died more than a few years ago and to say she was devastated is an understatement- it still hasn’t inspired her to get a Facebook account but it has led to using Google a bit more frequently.
One evening we were at a bar talking about men, a rather common subject between us when she mentioned there having been a boy in her high school science class who used to undress her with his eyes. He was a real nerd and it grossed her out, but it was still vivid in her mind. So we did what people do in the 21st Century. We Googled,
Welp.
He’s dead. She couldn’t believe it, he had only been 62!
This led to more Googling that unearthed the passing of one of my mother’s bridesmaids- the only one I ever remember because she had the best name ever: Wanda Pigg. Unfortunately Wanda died two years ago of cancer, she was survived by her second husband, had retired from her work as a teacher a few years prior and based on messages boards, was sincerely missed. She had never been able to have children, which is what led to the dissemination of her first marriage, to a man she had been crazy about. My mother remembered how devastated she was, but the man had wanted children of his own and she could not fault him for that. “He was such a nice man, it was an awful break up.” We then googled the ex-husband, a retired police chief to see what he was up to.
You guessed it. He was also dead, which at this point was too much for my mother who is only 66. All these ghosts were sitting with us at the bar. As she ordered another martini and dabbed at her eyes with the cocktail napkin I noticed something odd about the Chief’s write up and went back to Wanda’s obit, then toggled back to the Chief’s. They died on the EXACT SAME DAY. Same month, same day, same year. These two souls left the physical world on the same day- one death had been expected and one had not.
I find myself thinking about these two people who I’ve never met a lot lately. How they seemed to be destined for one another even in death. In searching for “the one” you try to remain positive and optimistic but it gets hard, and as time wears on many grow jaded. I was recently telling an older friend the story of an author whose life had intersected with her husband many times before they were brought together via a dating app. My friend guffawed at this, believing the pre-destined romance trope to be bullshit. And I get it, it does seem made up, too good to be true even. Does pre-destined mean it always works out in a tangible form or does it mean two souls are drawn together for a reason that may not be clear to them in the moment, but that they remember in the end as they come back together on the other side?
Think about Wanda Pigg, and the Chief and how it apparently didn’t work out for them because they didn’t end up together, but in the end, didn’t they?
too fat to be italian 