Barb Caffrey's Blog

It’s Christmas Eve in the United States. And about twenty-four years ago, it was around this time that my late husband Michael and I had the most amazing thirty-six-hour conversation in my entire life. Long distance, much via AOL Instant Messenger (still a thing in 2001), complete with raw honesty, what I’d call true bravery on both of our parts as we weren’t afraid to be vulnerable (and neither of us was drunk, or had taken any mind-altering substances as far as I know).

See, at the time, I was waiting for my second ex-husband (yes, I’ve been married three times, if I haven’t said that before or in a while) to come back to his home state and sign the divorce papers.

Mind you, I don’t want to discuss my ex here because there are reasons he’s my ex. What I want to discuss instead is the most amazing person I have ever known, my late husband Michael.

I had contemplated annulling my second marriage, but it cost too much time and too much money. That’s why I was going for a straight divorce instead, in the hopes that I’d be able to get out of the marriage faster. But it still took well over a year before my ex decided to sign the papers, mostly because by that time his then-girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife was heavily pregnant.

I truly hope he’s been a better husband to her than he ever was to me. But I digress.

Michael understood two things from the moment he met me (via a mutual friend). One, he knew right off that he was going to marry me. Two, he also knew that if he tried too hard, I’d run like Hell the other way. I’d had bad luck with men, to say the least, and I was divorcing for the second time at the age of thirty-five. I felt like a complete failure, really…I wasn’t one, but I still felt that way.

So, how did we end up having this thirty-six-hour conversation considering he knew I was gun-shy (for good reasons)? Mostly, the first couple of hours were stuff we usually talked about. Books, movies, current events, ethics, morality, you name it. We could talk for hours. He was possibly the one man I’ve ever known who types as fast as I do (as I type around 100 words per minute when I’m all warmed up). He also read as fast as I do, and so we could have these long conversations, intercut with a point from three minutes ago, intercut with another point from a half-hour ago, etc. And it didn’t bore him!

Nope. Instead, I think it enthralled him.

He was lonely, I was lonely, and there’s no doubt that was part of why we started talking that night. But what took us from a developing close friendship to a romance was how vulnerable and open we were that evening. Neither of us wanted to let the other one go. When I went to the bathroom, I’d tell him, and wait for him when he had to go. Neither of us had webcams, which might’ve been just as well (I’m sure he probably had one somewhere, but he wasn’t about to use it), as I was terrified.

Why? I mean, he already knew what I looked like. He knew I was a big, beautiful woman, what they now call a “curvy” woman. He was attracted to me. Partly for my body, I guess, but mostly for the mind and heart and spirit inside that body.

I liked his looks, too, but he could’ve looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and I’d have still wanted to be with him. (He didn’t. He was quite handsome, actually, but didn’t think so at all.) He had the most beautiful spirit, was kind-hearted, wanted to help people, would do whatever he could to make someone’s life a little better, and yet he also was witty, made me laugh on a continual basis, and him being willing to talk openly about what he wanted in a woman, and what he hadn’t found yet (as he was also divorced; he and his ex stayed friends, and I am still in contact with her, but they weren’t right for each other romantically).

Then, somewhere in those thirty-six hours, he said he thought he’d found it in me. And could we please consider ourselves courting now?

He used that old-fashioned term because it tickled him (he loved British and BBC period dramas), and partly because that’s exactly what he was doing.

Me on the verge of a second divorce did not scare him. It did not make him run away. And he was savvy enough, intelligent enough, and empathetic enough to know how to support me as I got to know him better.

There’s a reason I called him the most wonderful person ever. There actually are many.

So, twenty-four years ago today, my life changed for the better. I took a chance; he took a chance. It was the right thing to do. We were right for one another. Our marriage was a huge success by every metric he and I used: did we care about each other? Could we support one another? Did we have things we loved to do on our own as well as each other? Would we ever run out of stuff to talk about with each other? (Um, no. We never did.) Did we match in every possible way, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually?

Yes, we did.

We had no money, of course. Neither of us was in good health, and he was in worse health than he knew considering his four sudden heart attacks in one day, culminating in death, in September of 2004. But we wrote together, and it was glorious. (I have to get the two Elfy books out again. I’m sorry it’s taking extra time. Too much going on here, I guess. And my novel Changing Faces was partly the reason he felt he could talk to me in the first place, as he figured anyone who could write that was worthy of the best things in life. He didn’t think he was that, but he wasn’t going to pass on me, either. And he thought my exes were the most foolish, ignorant men on the face of this Earth, too. If I didn’t put that in, he’d not be pleased if he could come back and read this now.) The Elfy duology would not exist without Michael. My other stories, including some set in his own far-future SF Atlantean Union universe, would not exist without Michael. Changing Faces in any form would not exist without Michael either.

Bluntly, I am the person I am today in large part because Michael loved me and he wanted what was best for me. He loved that I played music, he could read music (in all clefs, too, which is hard; yes, I can do it, but I had years of practice and he picked it up seemingly overnight), he loved it that I composed music, he insisted on doing as many household chores as he could to spare me the back and knee pain, he cooked more often than I did even though we were both good cooks, and he made my life so much easier despite all of the obstacles that were in our way.

Once upon a time, I knew that the Deity must love me, or I never would’ve found Michael at all.

If I ever find someone kind enough, good enough, willing to try enough, to be in my life again, it’s because of Michael. His love made it possible for me to see that men can be good, kind, decent, honorable, steady as a rock, encouraging, creative in his own right, quick-witted, and worthy of love in all particulars, in all spheres (mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical), and his love ultimately helped me go on as best I could, even though it did take me at least eleven years to process and even now, still, it often feels like I’m walking on broken glass, trying to pretend my feet aren’t bleeding from the pain of his loss.

So, I don’t know the answers. As I have often said here, I don’t even know the questions sometimes. But I do know that love matters. Creativity matters. Honesty and ethics and fair dealing all matter, too. Honoring the love I had with my husband, that I will have until the day I die and assuredly after as well when we are finally reunited in joy on the other side (hopefully with all the dogs and cats we loved in this life at our sides along with my father and grandmother and all the people Michael had wished I could’ve known better, including his father, who died before I ever knew Michael’s name, much less how wonderful he was).

That’s what matters to me. That’s what’s always going to matter.

May your Christmas and New Years be filled with love, happiness, peace, joy, and whatever else you need to help you have a glorious 2026 despite everything else in your life that gets in the way.

Not having money, not having health, not having a constant place to live, have all gotten in the way of my life for sure. But so long as I have one breath left in my body, I have hope. So long as I remember that a truly good, kind, loving, funny, intelligent, creative person with so many multitudinous talents as Michael loved me, I know I am worthy of that love. And that helps me, at least in part, to get in touch with the Deity in some way, even though I still do not understand why I am here and he is not.

At any rate, it was twenty-four years ago today that my life changed for the better. I think that’s worthy of celebration, even though it’s really hard to celebrate considering Michael’s been dead for twenty-one years, three months, and three days.