A recurring theme among those of us who are left on the wrong side of the heavenly divide when our spouse passes is: if I had known, would I have gotten married? This is particularly resonant with those of us who were caregivers to our dying spouses and watched as some insidious condition or other had its way with them.

In my many bouts of introspection, I’ve often ruminated on this concept. My answer is “probably.” Why not a definitive yes or no? Let’s explore the reasons for it not being “no” first.

Reason 1: Like those who are outside of the prison of our loss looking in, I do not believe the younger version of any of us would have any inkling regarding the magnitude of the pain we are now experiencing.

Reason 2: We generally were not attracted to our spouses based on their life expectancy.

But why not “yes?” You would think, based on the logic above, that that would be the foregone conclusion; however, the foreknowledge would interfere with the “probability cloud” that drove us to where we are today (remember that Schröedinger guy?), so the probability that anyone with that foreknowledge would react as they did without is less than one.

Once a geek, always a geek, I guess.