Thanks to A.J. for bringing me in this week to fill in. More of my work can be found here. —Ben Gaffaney

Two years back I met a lovely and kind woman at an outdoor coffee place. Her son and my son were playing together and I joined her to watch, is how we met. We had people in common, we were both from the Chicago area, transplanted to Austin by relationships, but both of us were single now. We were single for different reasons. My marriage ended when 16 years of alcoholism came to a head with a DWI, rehab and a reckoning for my worst actions over that time. She was a young widow, her husband dying of cancer a few years prior.  We traded phone numbers, thinking we could get our energetic six-year-olds together again.

In subsequent years, we connected a few times, and I was hopeful we’d find a spark, but that never came. I finally understood that when you thought you had another 40 years together, perhaps another child, and it’s all unexpectedly lost, the next act is different. She may not have ever had any dating interest in me, in any scenario, but in this situation, the thought of a new relationship was alien to her. Today, she has a clear vision of her foreseeable life: motherhood, a network of friends, a stable non-corporate job, connection with family, chickens in the back yard. It takes tremendous strength to create a vision like that.