Somebody Else's Chris

Last week, I unexpectedly bumped into a man I hadn’t seen in eleven years. I knew him through a past relationship and always liked him very much. Later, he sent me an e-mail asking me if I’d like to get lunch sometime or perhaps a drink after work. We’re having breakfast on Wednesday before work.

The conversation is going to be loaded. He lost his wife, Janet, to cancer roughly five years ago and he has no idea that I know this about his life or that I lost my own husband to cancer. In fact, since my name is different, he has assumed that I am married.

Originally, we were going to have a drink this evening, but I began feeling sick and rescheduled with him. He told me to go home and have someone make me some homemade chicken soup. He doesn’t know there is nobody home to do that for me.

Because he thinks I’m married, I keep drifting into what I believe he is thinking. I picture myself with Chris, how things would be now if Chris was alive and I believe that this man is picturing me with my husband or the image of a husband. I wish Chris was still here and that I was still married to him. I liked being married and I loved being married to Chris. Now I’m not safe. For me, the opposite of safe is available...except that I’m not available, not by a long shot.

Last night I cried and cried until I fell asleep. My brain recreated Chris’ illness in such horrid detail that my skin and every hair follicle on my body hurt. I rolled around a bit. I started to punch my pillows and then became overtaken by the excruciating knowledge that punching everything I see with as much force as I can muster up for the rest of my life isn’t going to change anything. Why do I bother? I bother because I’m extremely angry.

The new guy at work is so much like Chris that it’s scary. Even his voice sounds like Chris’. He’s about the same height, same dark hair, same full lips, same silly sense of humor and sensitivity. He says the nicest things to me. After work, we found each other in the elevator bank and he said, “Oh. I thought you left and I was sad.” He bought me lunch the other day for training him. He’s going to be out of the office on Tuesday and I am already so comfortable with him that I said to him, “I already miss you for Tuesday.” He replied, “Aw, that’s so nice.” He’s so much like Chris. He tells me at least ten times a day that I’m so smart and that he’s amazed by my resourcefulness. I have known this man for four days and he has reminded me for four days and for as long as I am going to know him how much I loved Chris. It’s nice, really. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. He reminds me of the ease with which Chris and I got along. It’s the same ease. I love that he works right next to me and that we get along so well.

On his first day, I began to tell him some things about the job and he immediately took out his day minder to write them down. Chris. At our staff meeting, he was telling a story about a girl from school who he bumped into at work years later. He said, “It was totally random.” Chris always said that.

He’s young. He is 28 years old, which is the same age Chris was when I met him. Today, I told him that I lost my husband to cancer. I didn’t want him to think that I was divorced. I’m not divorced. Our marriage didn’t fail. It was cut short.

My Chris is gone. This guy, though, is somebody else’s Chris and he’s going to make her a very happy woman.