Seriously. I think he’s dead.

I google my exes now and then to see if they’re dead, and none of them ever are. Except I think my first husband is. The internet says he died in November of 2020 at the age of 62. The internet cites his full name (correctly), his date of birth (also correctly), his relatives (all of whom check out as names I remember) and it also says he is dead.

Now, when I bring this up, people wonder if I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m just surprised. He was very outdoorsy and stopped smoking at age 19. I assumed those attributes would work in his favor. After I left him, he went back to college and got a degree in engineering with a minor in geology. The internet provided a list of places he’d lived, and they were such odd places that I googled them. They all have mines, so I guess he became a mining engineer?

I guess that makes sense.

So he lived in terrible towns around the Northwest and was a mining engineer. The weirdest thing was finding him on Ancestry, where I am listed by full name as his only spouse. I thought he was married to someone else, at least for a while. His parents are both on there, photos of his brilliant father and his sweet little round mother (who was actually not sweet to me, right up until she was, and then I left, so…).

I had the strangest dream about him a few years back. His father hadn’t died, and his mother and father were still living in Bozeman. I was expected to visit them with him and pretend that we were still together. This is derived, I’m sure, from the months I spent staying with him because his father was dying, and as he said it, it would kill his mother if I left (I left the week after the funeral and she didn’t die).

But in this dream, because his father was still alive, I’d never been able to leave. We went in their house, which had a strong smell of cold air and dust (yes, I smell things in my dreams). His mother asked me when we were going to start trying for kids. I had no idea how to tell her that the childbearing years were long over for me. I said, oh, soon, and she said, good, I’ve always wanted grandchildren.

In the dream, I left that house and started walking towards Four Corners. I was determined to get away, to get out of there. I woke up terrified that my real life had somehow slipped away from me.

My life is right here, thankfully.

I don’t know who I’d be if I’d never left. Staying was not an option, so I didn’t engage in much what-if once I finally got away. I do know that I’d have earned my degree much sooner than I did. I’d never have had children because I’d never have had kids with him.

We lived in grinding poverty in the shed/hovel/apartment to the right, here: This Place. I was used to poverty, because my parents were liberal U-Haul moving addicts. But he came from an educated, comfortable family. He grew up in comfort.

I think his three brothers are still out there alive. I wonder if any of them had grandkids for my former mother-in-law. She must have been so relieved when I packed up my cats and left, asking for nothing at all, no car, no money, no slice of his trust fund.

All I wanted was out.

Also, odd coincidence.

I am reading two books right now. The Story of Mary MacLane is by Mary MacLane, who became a national sensation when her scandalously outspoken memoir was published in 1902, and The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry. This BRILLIANT little book opens with this quote: “I do not see any beauty in self-restraint.”–Mary MacLane

Both books are set in Butte, Montana. That’s where my first husband lived for a good part of his life post-me, and where he apparently died. I keep saying “apparently.” Forgive that. I’m only old on the outside, the inside of me doesn’t feel old at all, so death of people my age is still shocking to me.