It's the widow speaking here

I met a woman last night named Ernie. She dislikes her name, that one and the one it is derived from: Ernestine. Can't say I blame her.

But for me, my name is perfect, and I love it. Carol, my mother's little song. That's what she told me.

But this is not so much about names. You'll see.

Ernie is a widow, she told me she fills with envy when she sees a woman walk into a room with a husband. I told her I feel the same. Ernie's husband died seven years ago. She dislikes living alone.

I told her I understand.

Because, you know, it gets long, this living without my husband. Things happen in the mind, mine anyway, and I can get to thinking he didn't really love me.

I can hear my children yelling at me about that statement. But it's true. Things like that happen in the mind.

But in conversation with Alyce tonight I told her something that, as I think on it now, lets me know he surely did love me.

And it's good to fix the messed up thinking that goes on at times.

Here's what he did:
Less than two years before he died, he changed the amount of the buy/sell insurance policy on his half of the business. He more than doubled it. He did it so that, if he died, the insurance would provide for me. It has and it does.

You need not think I'm happy about it. I'd much rather have him here than have the money. But I'm making a point here.

You get it.