Death of a Girlfriend

So I was googling, as is my wont, while visiting my hometown, or rather, the town of my college days.  Naturally, I type in the names of old girlfriends.  Just checking.  Not that there are that many, and, truth be told, most of them turn up blank on google anyway--I did not travel in celebrity-status crowds.

This time, though, a funny thing turns up.  A professional license of the State, a certification allowing said former girlfriend to practice social work.  LCSW: Licensed Clinical Social Worker.  I read on.  Must be a typo: it says that the original issue was 1911.  That couldn't be right.  Then it says the license expired in 1997.  Further, it states there is no "disciplinary action". Good, good.   And then, I read and re-read, and re-read again the reason for the change in status is the DEATH OF LICENSEE.

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It has never occurred to me that former girlfriends would, you know, die.  I did not consider what my feelings would be.  Ironically, the reason I was visiting the home town at all was to attend the funeral of my uncle, who, with my aunt raised me each summer on their farm from when I was a wee child until I was well into college.  HIS death I could understand.... you might say I had been planning for it (as with the case of my own parents), my whole life.  He was 90, and his dying, because of our relative ages, is within the natural order of things.  

So how am I supposed to feel for my ex-girlfriend, whom I have not thought much about these past 40 years?  Here is something else: she died 8 years ago.  

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Truth be told, she was seven years older than me.  I met her when I was 20.  She was (I calculate in my head now) 27.  She died at the age of 59.  My head aches.  You do the math.  

She was running a program of remedial education for trainees at a local technical college, but I think the candidates may not have even had high school diplomas.  I was there because I was a volunteer tutor..... doing some community service, feeling rather smug and superior because I went to the big university, had a huge scholarship, had great grades, and I wanted to give back to the community and lord it over everybody else.  

I volunteered to teach math and most of my students were destined for failure at math.... most of them did not even show up for the second tutoring session.  That was when I met the beautiful woman who ran the program, talked to her about my frustrations with attendance, and she suggests we jump into my car and go VISIT the no-show student.  When we got to his (or her?) house..... nobody home.  She went around the house tapping on all the windows!

There were no scheduled tutoring session for another hour, so she suggests we go get coffee and chat.  And I, at 20, did not drink coffee and told her so.  She just stared at me blankly like I had announced I was a Martian. 

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She was recently divorced.  She had a toddler child.  She had a Jaguar that she wanted to sell because it was, in her words, the folly purchase of the ex-husband and the worst car ever made.  She owned a home (which she was also trying to sell).  

She was also drop-dead gorgeous.

Slim.  Blonde.  Funny.  She wore professional, but snug-fitting clothes. Seven years older than me.

Of course, I wanted to be her boyfriend.

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Why she ever conceded to that proposition is still a bit of a puzzle to me.  I believe now (forty plus years later I can think about this with a bit of clarity) it was because I was not, at that point, everything her ex-husband was: rich (rich enough, anyway), worldly, tall, confident, handsome (this is conjecture--I never met him nor saw photos), Jaguar-owner.  Homeowner.  Father.  Gainfully employed.  Connected.

I was nerdish, good at math and science, inexperienced.  Younger.

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I cannot actually remember ever doing anything with her.  I did visit her in the hospital once, early in the relationship, where she was convalescing following a procedure for some kind of vague female thing.  Here is the funny part though:  while I was there, ANOTHER would-be suitor drops by.  More her age.  More (I suspect) like the ex-husband.  THIS guy met her because he wanted to buy the Jaguar!

Naturally, in that small hospital room, we circle each other like tigers, her at the center, and us guys, both acting tough, circle and probe and act calm. Me, the nerd, and him, the jock.

But I outlast him, and when he finally leaves, she, in kind of a drugged stupor, sees my somewhat bewildered state and (I will love her forever for this) assures me that she does not like the guy.....  She says: "Give me some credit; what do you think i am?   How could I ever be interested in a guy who WANTS the Jaguar!"

I drive home, 40 miles away, as though I were on a cloud.

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The only other thing I remember doing with her besides the hospital (and this time with the toddler daughter in tow) was going to a wacky flea-market type thing where she bought, for the hell of it, a very ugly pickle dish.  Shaped like a pickle.  

I can see the humor in it now but at that time I was just baffled.

Instead, we usually just hung around her for-sale ranch house, eating her cooking (which was very unremarkable), messing with the daughter, telling jokes.  

No movies, no tv, no music, no shopping, no literature, no sports, no art, no hiking, no fishing, no serious drinking, no drugs, no nothing.  Just hanging.  

And having sex.  

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She was not my first; but she was only my second.  Which, I suppose, is another way of saying I was not very good at it.  Not that I have EVER gotten really good at it, but at least LATER I would learn to cultivate certain TASTES for things including, you know, the pleasure of my partner and how to make it happen.  Whereas at 20, the whole thing, gorgeous partner or not, is just rather mysterious and kind of mechanical, truth be told.  

She liked to kind of test me by telling me the kinky things she liked. I, on the other hand, have no vivid sexual memory of her.  

But I liked the way she smelled, without any chemical additives, a smell I can STILL conjure up in my mind if I want.  A nice, clean, but slightly earthy, baby soapy smell.  A human smell.  And I liked what she told me were called sun-dresses (which I had never stopped to consider before).... light wrap-around things that allowed her, she explained, to go without a bra.  I liked the way she tied up her hair into one big I-don't-give-a-s**t pile.  I liked the way she sang to the daughter, a lilting chant.  Although it was for sale, I liked that she owned a house.  I liked that she had a job.

She laughed easily.  She moved with grace.  And she WAS truly beautiful.

She liked to hang out at my lab at school and my classmates would come to me later and say things like: what the hell, man?  She liked that attention too, and naturally, it gave me a lot of CACHET, very important in a competitive undergraduate laboratory.

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I think the relationship ended because of the pickle dish.  

Not that I cared one way or the other, but, looking back, if I could not see the humor in it at the time, what hope was there, actually, for US?  The age difference, which was, in fact, the thing that drew me to her most, was actually the gulf between us.  

I like to think it was me that broke it off, but I really can't remember what happened.  I was, in fact, "dating" a few others at the same time (one who showed me she could touch the tip of her nose with her tongue) in my hippie, anything-goes world and besides, she lived 40 miles away and we really did not see each other that much.  

She was never demanding, willing to do anything I wished, and not press me to do anything she wished.  The child was never an issue between us.  She seemed to truly enjoy being with me, and that of course made me feel so good, but I knew, over time, it would be ME who was excluded from her world because she was beautiful, social, mature and I was not.

Now, confronted with her death of eight years, do I stop and ponder.  Sleuthing, I find she got her masters degree in social work 23 years ago, remarried twenty years ago, had a son who graduated from high school shortly before her death, 

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The toddler daughter now lives overseas.

Author's Note

I keep tinkering with this, mostly to get the cadence right, but also to ensure it pays the proper homage to a time I should have been paying closer attention and to a woman friend I miss more each time I rewrite this. Have at it.

Reviews

[Veritatis Cupitor]

I enjoyed reading this. Despite that it's about a grim sort of finding, your details on the memory of your ex was nicely written and I found myself reading on to find out what happened between the two of you.

*You write in a casual tone, almost as if you are conversing directly with the reader and this makes reading your work a joy rather than say a task.

[Emily B]

it is perfect, do you plan to collect these stories in a larger work?