A date for three

I’m always hearing about a surplus of widows and divorced women, but recently I realized that I have been meeting widowers.

I got a call from my photographer
who asked if he could fix me up with one of his actor clients, “Moe,” who had spotted my photo and wanted to contact me. The last time I’d seen him was several years ago, and he was married then. Now he was a widower. I spotted his picture in the photographer’s sample book and kept flipping the pages. The photographer was pleased — he thought he was making a shidduch (match) and was surprised when I told him I’ve known Moe for years.

Moe, acting like he didn’t know me, sent me an e-mail, containing a few silly one-liners — and he asked me to call him. I told myself I have nothing to lose — if nothing else I’d get a lunch out of it. I played it straight. I wrote back and asked him to tell me about himself and what it was about my headshot that caught his eye. He responded that it was the sparkle in my eyes, and he asked for my phone number.

He called and we arranged to have lunch on a Tuesday. At lunch I saw a totally different Moe. He was a little more serious. He talked about himself, and about his late wife, which brought tears to his eyes. She had died of a brain tumor, and he was her caretaker. He has grown children from a previous marriage. And, of course, we talked about our careers and how we keep busy between auditions.

Although we are both in a good age category, neither of us gets many auditions, but we keep plugging. We parted with “let’s stay in touch.” I called him about a week later, and we had a friendly chat and left it at that.

In 2003, I got a call from a friend in Chicago telling me that a mutual friend in Maryland had died of a brain tumor. I sent her husband “Joe” a condolence card. In 2004, as I usually do, I sent a Rosh Hashanah card. Then I get a phone call from Joe. A weekly call turned into a daily call. We reminisced about the old days and caught up with the present. He was still hurting after his wife’s death (it was a 45-year happy marriage). Our phone conversations cheered him up. Joe decided he wanted to visit Los Angeles. He had been stationed at Camp Pendleton in the Marines in the 1950s and had not been here since. I had not seen him since I left Maryland 30 years ago.

When I met him at the airport he looked the same — a few wrinkles, a little gray hair. Then I noticed a shaky hand (an uncontrollable tremor), and he had problems with his dentures. The two weeks in January that he stayed in my guestroom were the rainiest in Los Angeles. In between the raindrops, I tried to show him the sites. We did see a lot of movies, and ate out.

He hated to leave: He was having a good time and it was cold and snowy back East. Joe beamed when his flight was delayed by two days. Before he left, he accepted a wedding invite in May in San Francisco and invited me to go. His unmarried adult daughter was also invited.

When they came in May he rented a car, and was planning to do some of the driving. But once was enough for him, and L.A. traffic was not his thing. His daughter was no help, so he handed me the keys and I drove the entire trip up the coast. We stopped at all the famous sites. Having lived in the Bay Area for many years, I was familiar with the area.

During one of our phone conversations we had talked about what I would do if I had lots of money — my response was to travel. Well, he asked me if I wanted to go to Israel (the rabbi from his temple was going to lead a mission at the end of June 2005) — something I wasn’t expecting. Of course, I said yes.

He paid for the entire trip including separate rooms. Jerusalem was our home base and we were kept busy from morning till night. We took lots of day trips from the Golan Heights to the Dead Sea — including what seemed like every Israeli museum. I had a wonderful time and made 30 new friends instantly. As much as we both enjoyed the trip, it felt like his late wife was with him in spirit the entire time. Bottom line: we still talk twice a week. I’ve seen Joe a few times when I’ve gone to Washington, D.C. to visit my kids.

I feel sorry for both Moe and Joe. Although they say they are healing, I don’t think either one will get over the loss of their wives. The jury is still out. And, yes, I do feel somewhat cheated — maybe the next time I meet a widower I should give him a questionnaire asking “how far along are you in the grieving process?” before I date him.

Esther W. Hersh is an actress who lives in Los Angeles.