A presidential debate. Televised. Coming up at 6:00 our time. Jon would have arranged his day — and our dinner hour — around it.

And so would I.

Jon and I were of one mind when it came to world events. Miss a consequential televised debate? Not a chance. We were newsies, after all, veterans of decades in the news business.

My writer friend, whose husband died a few months before mine, laughed when I told her my plans for the evening. She and her husband wouldn’t dream of sitting down to watch Joe Biden and Donald Trump duke it out on TV. They had better things to do.

“I guess we both picked the right guy,” I said.

“Yes. We got lucky.”

Jon and I had a meeting of the minds. So did my friend and her husband.

Widowed: Two People and a Marriage

But how much of that like-mindedness was present on the day we met our future spouses? And how much of it was shaped by year after year of eating, sleeping, watching the news (or not watching the news), and making the big decisions together?

Back in 1971, when Jon and I met, there was a Jon Newhall and there was a Barbara Falconer. By the time Jon died fifty years later, a third entity taken shape, something we had created over the years. Us.

More about love and marriage at, “A Marriage Proposal — The Man Said Yes.”  Also at, “Time to Crack Open That Hope Chest and Live a Little.”