Day 6 - We're Not Alone on this Road

 Alpine, WY to Bozeman, MT

Shoving off out of Wyoming for points North, the Three Amigos were excited for this segment of the trip, because on this day we'd be joined by two very special guests, my girlfriend, Susan, and her daughter, Charlie.

Susan and I have been dating long distance for some time. She in East Long Island, NY, and me in Beaufort, SC, we were introduced through a mutual friend in my old neighborhood in Charleston, SC. Susan too is a widow having lost her husband suddenly in the early Spring of 2021. Charlie was two years old.

Being widowed with young children and dating long distance, seeing one another once a month or so, presents a series of challenges, certainly. The lack of consistency being the most present, I think. But it also allows for some grace, too. 

Over time and with trips to New York and they to Beaufort, the kids have had the opportunity to slowly acclimate to one another and of course, to each of us. Conor and Charlie have a great relationship. She adores Conor, looks up to him, and harasses him incessantly, albeit in the most playful way. His patience on occasion wears thin, him being thirteen years old and Charlie being six years old, the age gap is considerable, but Conor admonishes her when he needs to and then otherwise takes his leave.

The relationship between Susan and Conor is an interesting one as well, because she talks with him on a peer level. She doesn't guard much when they're in conversation, and they enjoy spending time together, too. Specifically shopping and baking - two things that are far down the bottom of my list in terms of what I enjoy. And yet, if Conor over steps, she doesn't hesitate to bring him back into line. He respects her, and I'm made better because it, as is Conor, too.

Similarly, whenever we're all together Charlie most often becomes my shadow. Where I go, she follows, and always inquisitive and adoring. I gladly take on the responsibility of being a strong male figure to her given the life she would have had with a doting and loving father was stolen from her. And while I can never replace that, I can at least step in and provide for her experiences that he would have offered, and its my goal to honor him in that way. 

Dating as widowed parents, we often talk of our respective spouses with the kids, and always in the most respectful and loving ways. We talk about how much I would have enjoyed knowing Dave Duffy and he me, and Susan to have met and known Sara, too, identifying where the similarities are between them both and the lives we might have shared had things gone a different way. But they didn't go that way, and so it's a collective duty to ever keep them at the forefront of the conversation. And in that way, it's an honor to support their respective legacies.

Hence my insistence on Susan and Charlie making this leg of the trip with us. And so while they're only here for three days in Montana, our Healing Roads merged and adventure up ahead, the Three Amigos are all too happy to host the Duffy girls in our rented and now somewhat cramped RV!

Tonight we'll spend the Fourth of July in Glacier, Montana and just as was the case last night, we'll sit around the campfire and tell stories of our past, who we've loved, and the often hilarious and ridiculous calamities that made us all who we are, with the hopes of making new memories to be shared around a fire years from now, too.

Happy Fourth of July, y'all!