Modern Love The Podcast is supported by

Produced by the ILAB at WBUR Boston.

From The New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is Modern Love.

Stories of Love, Loss and Redemption.

I'm your host, Megna Chacrabardi.

For Meghan Horst and her husband Christian, there was life before February 23, 2012,

and then there was life after.

Meghan writes about what happened in her essay, Are You My Husband?

It's read by Renee Elise Goldsbury.

Renee won a Tony Award for her role in the hit musical Hamilton.

She's starring now in the movie Waves, currently in theaters.

Recently, I found myself on the receiving end of a tarot card reading at a summer potluck.

A woman I had met only 30 minutes earlier peered at me over her glasses.

The card spread out on a cooler between us.

Holding the five of Pentecostals, she said,

Have you grieved the loss of your husband?

The directness of the question from a stranger shook me.

Especially since my husband was still very much alive,

less than three miles away in our house.

Yet it was not the first time this had come up.

Various people from my stepmother-in-law to my therapist have said something along the lines of,

I think you need to grieve the loss of your husband.

...