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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVYz5IvRQyM

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Previously

"I love you," she said; almost incongruously until I realized it wasn't her post-departure self but rather her in 1984.

"In a lifetime ."

Just in time
I found you just in time
Before you came, my time
Was running low

I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go

A warm, sunny Saturday in a park in late May…

“I can’t believe this actually happening,” I said with an awkward shrug.

“Well…it’s not really happening, is it?” she mused as she took another bite of quiche. I frowned as I looked over at the other gazebo. Festive wedding guests were completely oblivious that they were attending an almost other-worldly celebration.

“Caryn told me she was happy for us.” Caryn’s husband Danny had conniptions the first go around in the real world knowing that I had been divorced. But here… sitting here… Two brides? Double ostracism? He saw me and waved almost apologetically. Here and back on earth so to speak, Caryn was slowly helping him to come around.

“I’m so glad…”she smiled and used her hand in a broad gesture to indicate the festivities. Imagine a church filled with people who would keel over collectively in realization that they were part of a same-sex wedding. I can muse about that here, but back then..in our… heavenly excursion. But In the midst of the new version, I was still filled with shame. Brides…even bogus ones cry at their own wedding, don’t they?

“I am glad, babe. You know we never talke4d a lot at the beginning and after the…you know?”

“Your death?” I winced at my own words. As wonderful as the reimagination had lifted me, the cold reality...the eventual return to reality…

“I’m here an you’re all mine. Sweetie? I knew when we met…we’d be together.”

“I…I had this…it was like god told me that, bu I couldn’t believe it. Why I took so long to say yes.” She paused and smiled wryly.

“But this?” she used her hand to geture up and down at my dress.

“There was something about you that was…”

“Girly?” My question would have sounded light-hearted but for my stupid, ever-present weepy affect.

“So? I finally figured out why you have better fashion sense than me.” I cringed.

“Stop it.” You took that test… the one that said you were fify-fifty? Remember what I said just weeks before…”

“You said as long as I was still your husband,” I bowed my head. Our guests seemed to have wandered off to another part of the park.

“But I’m happy you’re my wife, too.”

Now you're here, now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fears I've found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life that lucky day

“You seem to think I got the poor side of the bargain. I was living with my grandparents and working two nursing jobs. You can’t know…well you can because I’m telling you… You rescued me as much as I rescued you. And yes, darling, that includes this part of you, even if she only just arrived.

“You can’t mean that,” I argued.

“I have never,, I have NEVER lied to you! You’re the one who woke up to the scent of roses and lilies. My favorite flowers which I never told you about until after... I’m very happy with this,” she nodded and pointed again to my dress.

I was the one who was lost, hun,” I said. It was getting to be more than a little confusing. Thirty some-odd years on terra firma only to realize at least a small rendezvous of clarification.
Twobrides all along?

"You have been as human as they come, babe. And you have always been just what I needed. I’m not sorry so much about not meeting this part of the girl I sorta married as I am saddened that you never really knew how much I accepted you. This may be the best we’ll ever do, bu I can’t think of a better way to segue into eternity than to be with my girl…my wife.

And of course my default response for everything kicked in and I began to cry.

“Oh no you don’t. At least until have my say. Give us a kiss?” She didn’t wait for a replay, and eternity didn’t either as she kissed me.

I sighed in the midst of maybe the second or third most blessed moment in my life as we both hugged as ferociously as two lovers can do even as we began to fade.

“NO!” It wasn’t fair! There was no calm assurance that our times together would continue. This time her disappointed tears mirrored my own, but the growing smile on her face belied the mood. She squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek before saying yet again,

“In a lifetime.”

Now you're here, now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fears I've found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life that lucky day

Next: I'm Always Chasing Rainbows

Just in Time
words and music by
Adolph Green, Betty Comden, Jule Styne
as sung by the incomparable
Miss Peggy Lee