If you haven’t already had the pleasure of meeting Colleen, and through meeting Colleen, getting to know her late husband Bill and what real love looks like, I think you need to spend a little bit more time on Threads.
Colleen is a fairly recent widow, having lost her husband last June. She was just a normal lady with a Threads account until Bill died. By September, Colleen had started using her Threads account as a way to speak to her husband from beyond the mortal plane. The thoughts and memories she shares are the seemingly small, but incredible things about a life shared with another person that make marriage so special.
One reason why the account resonates with me so much is that I did the same thing via email when I lost both my stepparents at 17. The thought of not being able to tell them what was going on made me start an email address so I could write to tell them what was going on in my life, because for some reason, just speaking it out loud didn’t feel like enough. And when I go back at my old emails and look at Colleen’s Threads, I can see the difference; through the written word, you can see all the pain, love, and grief that comes with being left here on Earth. You can also see how non-linear grief is – some days the Threads and emails are a little longer, some days they’re funny. Some days, the messages are shorter, and when you read them, you can feel how many tears those few words were holding at bay. Life goes on, and it has to, but it’s so unfair even though it’s a privilege to still be earthside.
I think the other reason why I am moved by Colleen and Bill’s relationship is that the little day-to-day things are what I miss most about having a partner. A life with someone is not just big, exciting, or emotional events; it’s the sum of everything big and small, and after being with someone for 9 years and now being single for 2, I can tell you the things I miss most are the small things, and they add up. I feel the most single when I come inside from taking the dog out, and it’s super hot or cold, and there’s no one around to commiserate with. I miss having to check what someone else wants for dinner, even though it’s way easier to eat whatever I want. I don’t miss having someone else to tidy up after, but you know what? I miss seeing the residue of having someone else in my life, and I think I’d pick up an errant item or two in exchange for hearing someone else making their unique brand of noise in another area of my space.
Colleen and Bill have real love – and real love means sometimes you guys are kind of assholes to each other. Sometimes you make fun of each other, and you don’t listen, and you don’t like the way somebody else does something around the house. If you’re lucky you get to tell them that, I don’t really like when you do (blank) but I love you anyway. You’re not perfect, but I still choose you, and I’m so happy to do life with you. You annoy me more than anybody else on this earth, but I wouldn’t trade you for anything. I’m so happy we’ve been together so long that we can say, “Remember when?” Colleen’s Threads give us a look at a marriage that wasn’t perfect, wasn’t always easy, but was what real love looks like.
There’s something beautiful and tragic about loving someone enough to grieve them. The other side of the excitement and rush of getting married is that one of you (God willing) will outlive the other one, and the person who stays gets left behind with the sum of the memories that made up your life together. At the same as I can’t imagine how hard it is to not have the person who built this life with you, I also think that there is no greater privilege to love and be loved like Colleen loved Bill and Bill loved Colleen.
Watching Colleen love Bill out loud, now six months after he died, reminds me that what I’m actually looking for isn’t fireworks or perfection or someone who never gets on my nerves. I’m looking for a life that feels shared in the smallest moments. Someone whose presence would eventually become so ordinary and so essential to the way I live and breathe that I’d notice the absence of it in the quietest parts of my day.
I don’t know who that person will be for me yet. I just know that seeing a love like Colleen and Bill’s makes me less willing to settle for something hollow or performative just to avoid being alone. If I’m going to build a life with someone again, I want it to be the kind of life that would be worth missing this deeply. The kind of love that would make writing to them (wherever they are) feel like the only thing that makes sense.
Go follow Colleen, you won’t regret it. Hug your husband or wife extra big, if you have one.
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