The 1st of March marked three months since Des and I made it official ‘way back’ on my 55th birthday when he gave me a ‘kuis’ ring – the pull tab from a very old cold drink can that Vaughan found while we were exploring The Little Red Desert. That date also marks 17 months, 1 week, 3 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes (and counting) since my heart was wrenched from my chest the day Gavin had a tragic car accident.
Right now, it’s somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep. For a couple of days, I’ve felt this blog coming on, and it decided now was the time.
So, let’s talk about moving on …
On Saturday night, Des was looking for a kid-friendly movie for the three of us to watch. While he was scrolling through Netflix, he saw the trailer for Armageddon and said, “This is one of the last movies Luzelle and I watched together.”
This statement, although it sounded simple and ‘by the way’, was weighted with years of pain because he lost Luzelle in a car accident in September, too, but more than 18 years ago.
His words triggered my ‘Loss’ button. I said, “We never know when the last of anything will be before we lose someone. The last day, the last bedtime, the last kiss…”
Des remembers his last day with Luzelle. It was a Sunday; they went to a flea market. He said it was an amazing day. They were in a good space. My last day with Gav was the Thursday before his accident. We kissed and hugged goodbye because I was flying to Cape Town to spend a week with Justin. Gav’s last words to me in person were, “Travel safe.” Because I was the one travelling far – 1650 km to be more-or-less precise, vs the 20-odd km that Gav would be travelling to work and back every weekday. But then, what happened? He was the one who didn’t make it home after a random call-out on a Saturday afternoon.
With all of this in mind, I hugged Des tight and, through my tears, said, “You mean the world to me, and despite the fact that we get on so well, the fact that we get each other through this level of pain is one of the reasons why we were meant to be together now.” And he hugged me back, just as tightly.
***
I’ve had loved ones expressing concern about my relationship with Des. Some are surprised by how quickly I moved on. Some are concerned by how quickly I moved forward. The most common point of concern is that I’ve stopped grieving, missing, remembering Gav; that I’m not working through the feelings that linger for years after losing someone.
In the early days* of my relationship with Des (*early days – haha – it’s only been three months and a bit since we met! – but I digress), in the early days, I tried to defend myself, tried to justify my decisions and behaviour, but then I stopped.
I knew. Des knew. That’s all that mattered.
You see, when you meet someone who has lost people the same as you (not just once, twice), to be honest, it feels like they were sent by God Himself. It feels divine.
What are the odds that two people, originally from the West Rand, would meet on the South Coast many years later, each having lost a fiancé/fiancée and a spouse? Seriously – if you’re a numbers/data person and you know how to calculate it, let me know; what are the odds? I’d love to know the numbers for interest’s sake, but numbers aside, I know the heart stuff, and that’s what matters to me.
***
But do you still miss Gav? I hear countless people not asking.
I do. Almost every day. Sometimes I miss him more because of Des. Sometimes I miss him less for the same reason. What do I mean? Well, let’s face it, when I decided I was ready to meet someone (because I wasn’t loving being alone; because I need to love and be loved), I didn’t go looking for another Gav. I wasn’t looking to replace someone who was irreplaceable. I wanted a different person who would be incredible and bring value to my life in their own way. Des is just that. He is almost exactly the opposite of Gav. That sometimes makes me miss Gav. But on the flip side, because Des is almost exactly the opposite of Gav, he sometimes helps me miss Gav less.
When my heart is sore from longing, I can tell Des and he doesn’t feel threatened or jealous. Instead, he hugs me, and I feel better. He can’t take the missingness away, but it feels better knowing he knows and understands. I can share my memories of Dennis and Gavin with Des, and Des can share his memories of Luzelle and Isabel with me, and neither of us feels threatened or jealous because we get it… We know that we’ll never stop loving, never stop missing, and always honour the partners who passed away by remembering them to each other – the good and the not-so-good, the real and the raw.
Sharing our pasts and our loves with one another also gives us a good idea of what our futures together could be like. We know how the other loved through thick and thin; we know we’re resilient; we know we’re broken and patched, and capable of loving again.
When I lost Gav, I lost my heart. I said earlier that it felt as though my heart was wrenched from my chest the moment I knew he was gone; well, it actually felt as if a cannon had shot a hole through me. Where my heart used to be was a gaping wound. For months, I felt physical pain. A dear friend told me that the Lord would give me a new heart. She saw in the spirit a heart made from sapphire, and that one day, He would put my new heart in the gaping hole and close the wound, but I’d always have the scars to remind me.
The procedure to put the new heart back wasn’t lengthy or complicated. It was nothing short of a miracle. One day, I had a gaping wound; the next, I had a new heart. And my new heart has a name… Des.
Feature image generated by ChatGPT.
