Tapenga's Tales
Part 5 - Moving In

Bob is an amateur astronomer so on our second date he took me hiking and to look at the stars. They were beautiful and his knowledge of the sky was endless.

We had spoken many times on the phone and computer between dates and I was soon to go on vacation with my children to my father's house. We picked up where we left off when I got home. I had no doubt that he was the one for me, we were so much alike, but it took him 3 years to figure it out.

We had a discussion a week before my next birthday regarding the direction of our relationship. He told me that he was not in a hurry to have a committed relationship. I told him that I wanted that in my life, that I find life fuller when it is shared with someone else.

I decided that night that though he was the one for me, perhaps I was not the one for him and that I was going to see other people. I cried all the way home from his house that night. I spent my birthday praying that he would call me. I went out to dinner with my kids, mom and sister and her family.

When I got home there was a message from Bob. I waited excitedly until everyone went home and then rushed inside to call him. We exchanged birthday wishes, and he asked how late the next night he could call me. I told him it didn't matter and ended up at his house to celebrate our birthdays. We continued to have a difference of opinion on how long it would take for each of us to decide our relationship was meant to be, but it was obvious that it was!

My children had taken to him as well, but they were teenagers and young adults and things were not always easy. My youngest especially was hesitant to let another man into her life after her father seemed to have discarded her, yet I could see a good relationship building with them as well.

If I had followed through with my plans to not see men without children I would have done my children a huge disservice as there is no better dad and grandpa in the whole world then my husband.

The first time he spent the night at my house which was well after we had been seeing each other for 2 years and he had established a great friendship with my children, my youngest, Roberta, at 16 was not a happy camper. He helped us through an unplanned pregnancy with my middle child, and has been there for all of them through thick and thin.

I had brought up the possibility of us living together about a year before it happened. It was about 2 1/2 years after we met that we moved in together. There were a lot of decisions to be made. We each owned houses so where would we live? My house was home to Roberta who was still in high school and his house, though only about 3 miles away was in a different school district.

Needless to say she was not eager to move out of her home and thought that it was just another in the list of evils that were happening to her. It was interesting to note that our houses were both the same floor plan. His house did not have many furnishings as his ex-wife had taken most of it with her.

Because of the way the equity in my house was distributed in my divorce agreement we decided to live in his house, but it would be filled with mostly the furnishing from my house. My youngest was very skeptical of this plan for multiple reasons including leaving her home and having to drive back daily to graduate from her current school system and with her friends. I kept assuring her that it would all work out fine, and we put our house on the market.

Now I am sure that this was not an easy transition for my husband as well. He was used to living a bachelor lifestyle coming and going and sleeping and waking as he pleased with his 2 cats requiring very little attention. He was now going to add a girlfriend, her teenage daughter, another cat, a dog, 2 married daughters and 2 grandchildren. It was a wonder he didn't have his head examined!

We moved in Nov 1st. I was excited, my youngest was skeptical, and God only knows what Bob was feeling! His house was being invaded by hormones and tampons!

To make matters about as bad as they could be one of his cats had been sick for about a week. We kept him in Bob's office as we moved in. I got up at about 5 the next morning and tried to feed him. It appeared that he was doing better, but later that morning when we all got up he was not doing well and an emergency trip to the vet proved to be too late.

He passed away in the car on the way. I am sure that Bob by this point was having multiple second thoughts.

(More to come in part 6)