to continue last night's topic

As it turns out, Bill and Helen were at the Super Bowl party hosted by our ministers, and I got to share with Helen most of this story about how inspired I was by them. As it turns out, they have been dating for just over a year now, and they also met through e-harmony.

Anyway, we were all at Bonnie's funeral on Wednesday. And, for me, this was the second funeral I had been to since Becky's. The first was a few months after she died when my stats professor lost his wife, also to lung cancer. But that ceremony was not tremendously emotional for me, most of it was in Chinese so they could just as soon be telling knock-knock jokes as anything else. My classmate Nikki was there with me and she was also a great help.

So there was more about this funeral that was about Becky's death than it was about Bonnie's death. And I could tell that the same was true for Bill - he was thinking more about Anne's death and the pain of that loss. That he could share that with someone made me tremendously jealous. And not only that, but he could share it in such a way that made their relationship all the stronger. Seeing them together reminded me of why I am dating in the first place. It is not primarily about sex, though sex would be welcomed. It is about sharing life again, not the perfect life we dreamed of in our youth but the real life, stinky as it is, that we get to have every day.

I was a good husband once and a decent father. And now I am a great dad and would be a much better husband than Becky ever had. But I am lonely this weekend and wondering who will ever take the time to find that all out.