My friend “Crystal” calls me. She tells me she has just read one of my recent columns, “The Weak Moments of Divorce” – aka the column where I wrote about listening to our honeymoon song, “Red, Red Wine” on the radio.

“Crystal” gets it. She’s been divorced. She understands the yin and the yang. The push and the pull. The love and the hatred. The forgiveness and the anger.

“Crystal” doesn’t ask me when I experience these moments if I am interested in getting back together with my soon to be ex (as some others do). She realizes that for those of us who have ended these enduring relationships that our former (or soon to be former) spouses have two identities in our lives.

She realizes that there is the ‘memory’ and the ‘reality’ of the one we once loved with all our heart.

In the ‘memory’ that person is still beautiful. They are first dates, I love you’s, shared secrets, special songs, weddings, first houses, babies, vacations, inside jokes, and quiet moments.

In the ‘reality’ they are ugly. They are arguments, broken promises, strangers, betrayals, time lost, and disappointments.

The truth is with ‘lost love’ you simply can’t have one without the other. There is always the ‘before and after.’

So there will always be the honeymoon song, “Red, Red Wine” on the radio moments. The ones where for a brief encounter time will stop the ugliness and bring the beauty back.

Some may call it pain.

I call it healing.

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