Happiest sad man, or saddest happy man

“You’re either the happiest sad man in the world,” my buddy Bill told me recently with sorrow in his voice, “or the saddest happy man.”

The occasion was the sudden death by stroke of the love of my life, Carol Felvey, a death that came completely out of the blue on Labor Day weekend this year.

Carol and I have been happily together for four years. I first met her a few months after I lost the other love of my life, Gail, to whom I had been married for more than 48 years. Gail, too, died of a massive stroke after being debilitated for eight years by other strokes.

Happy man? Hell, yes. No man can claim greater happiness from the women they love.

Sad man? That too. No man can claim more sadness at their loss, because great sadness is most strongly felt when a great gift is taken from you — a gift without which you would never have known happiness on such a scale.

I first met Carol thanks to this column. She, too, was a writer, who had penned the book “My Healing Heart: a widow’s story” (2001) after losing her husband, Patrick, to cancer after 29 happy years of marriage. That book led her to become a Sun City grief group counselor.

When I wrote about my grief after losing Gail, someone in the group gave Carol a copy of my column. Carol emailed me, expressing her sympathy and asking if I would consider collaborating with her in some capacity – either with the grief group or on a blog she maintained. She felt I had a valuable insight into how men process grief, which can be different from how woman process it.

I politely declined, because I was still immersed in grief that I wanted to get past and leave behind. I didn’t want to be “That Grief Guy.” But I would be willing to meet for coffee to discuss her work.

And a three-and-a-half-hour cup of coffee later, we knew we would become close friends because of so many common interest — music, literature, art, museums, food preferences, Chicago connections, sense of humor, and more.

But we would be friends only, I insisted. It hurt so much to lose my wife, I never wanted to start a relationship and lose another gift so great again. She agreed, knowing firsthand what it is like to lose the love of your life.

But within a year she reneged on her agreement and told me that she loved me. “It’s your own fault,” she said. “You’re too damn charming.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking up the joke. “I knew I shouldn’t have turned up my charm blaster to 7.”

In all honesty, I was terrified, because I was falling in love with her, too. And because I wasn’t yet through a full year after losing the love of my life, it felt like betrayal to love another.

But that’s grief talking — and Carol wrote the book on grief. She understood, and she promised that there was no pressure on me to love her, then or ever. But because we had agreed that total honesty would be the bedrock of our friendship, she felt she had to confess her love for me, regardless of any pain it might cause.

But it turned out that Carol had a charm blaster of her own, as anybody who has known her will agree. It wasn’t long before I told her, tearfully and truthfully, that I loved her too.

Within a year or so we became travel buddies, taking long trips to do the things we both loved: kayaking, fishing, and art-show hopping in Naples, Florida; listening to Celtic music in Berea, Kentucky; hiking trails around Bar Harbor, Maine; and more.

I was her Tomcat. She was my Coondog.

She was one of the few people in my pandemic bubble, and by November of 2021 she moved in with me so we could wake up to every day of our happy lives together.

Whenever we hoisted a drink, be it the morning’s tomato juice or the evening’s Irish whiskey, we clinked glasses and said “Happy anniversary.” If others overheard, we just said it was a silly joke between us.

But we both knew it was something much more than that. Because each and every day of our relationship was so happy, each and every day on the calendar was a celebration of some blissful day a year ago. And two years ago. And three and four.

And how do you not fall in love with perpetual anniversaries between you to celebrate each happy day?

I lost my loving wife, Gail, to a sudden stroke on Valentine’s Day, 2018. I lost my loving best friend, Carol, to a sudden stroke on Labor Day weekend, 2022.

And for now, I am once again that guy I never wanted to be—Grief Guy. For now, I feel hollow and broken, and I see no way out of the pain.

But although I have a hard time believing it, I know this: I won’t be Grief Guy forever. Carol helped me see that Gail was still with me all along, and always will be. And I know that Carol, too, will be with me all along, all the way to the end of my life.

Their loss brings me unimaginable sadness because they were great gifts to me, without which I never would have known happiness on such a scale.

And so, to all who know me, thank you so much for your kind words and expressions of love and support. Please be patient until I am able to shed my Grief Guy shell.

Because once Grief Guy is gone, I will always be the happiest sad man in the world, and also the saddest happy man.

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.

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