Shook up

A while back I mentally searched the list of women I knew, to see if I knew any who were happily married for a long time. My criteria were simple. The person had to be:

• Female
• Married
• In this relationship for TEN YEARS (I picked this because of statistics on divorce before and after the ten year mark - ten years is "pretty stable")
• Happy (not just biding her time until the kids are old enough for a divorce, not wondering what life would be like if, not trapped but grinning-and-bearing-it, not Working Through A Rough Time Right Now, but GLAD she's there)

I came up with one after a fair amount of thought. I have several other possibles. For most of these possibles I have to stretch one or more of the criteria - sometimes the length of time, and sometimes I don't know the lady in question well enough to say whether she's grinning and bearing it. But there was one DEFINITE.

So I thought of my own life, and I thought, okay, I'll try to stick it out. One out of hundreds of women I know -- hey, I can match those odds. I'm willing to work at it. She exists, so I know it's possible.

Last night I learned she's filing for divorce.

Y'know, I hate to sound like a cynic, but some days the cynical answer really does fit what I can see.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH

A friend of mine just died. Helicopter crash, no survivors.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

I was closer to his wife than to him, so I guess I should say a friend of mine just lost her husband. She's a wreck right now. Hasn't eaten for a day, that sort of thing.

Damn.

Some phone calls you just don't want to get. Ugh. Sigh.

Now comes the rounds of telephoning, the staying with her so that she will eat, the organizing some kind of memorial...

Damn.