Mourning My Ex-Husband

We were divorced but remained good friends

When we were still married, enjoying bluebonnets in Texas

My ex-husband Rick recently died. What might surprise people — I mourn his loss. I was in the hospital when I got a call from his girlfriend. We were on friendly terms, so I appreciated her letting me know, but I didn’t really feel anything right away.

I had lost about 40 hours of my life by then — I have no memories from the time I arrived at the ER until I woke up in a hospital bed in a private room. Friends had visited. I apparently talked to them and prayed with them but had no memory of it. I only knew because I was told they’d come.

So it’s not unusual that when I first heard of my ex-husband’s demise, I only felt vaguely sad. The next morning, however, it really hit me. And I cried.

I miss him.

One reason things remained amicable between us is probably the way we divorced.

We treated each other with respect, in an adult manner. So we were able to do it without lawyers. We talked about it, then I emailed him my terms, he proposed changes and emailed me back, and we simply went back and forth until we had an agreement we were both OK with. Best of all, the entire divorce cost less than $200.

This made it easier to remain friends afterwards. At one point he asked if I wanted to…