I’m not sure there was ever a person I knew really well when I was young that I didn’t recgonize them when we met decades later.
Until this week.
I’m not talking about someone who was a brief acquaintance back in the day, or even someone I dated for a few months. I would guess anyone on the far side on 70 might have people they would forget.
But family? Do you think someone could be the biggest part of your life for more than six years — six years of adulthood — and not recognize them when you see them?
Well, not exactly see them.
See a picture of them.
Before I go any further, I want to say I won’t mention any names or post any pictures out of respect for the privacy of the subject of this piece.
But Mike, wouldn’t it be more respectful just to pick a different subject?
Well …
Never mind.
I met the woman who would become my first wife in the winter of 1972-73. She was dating a friend of mine and a year later she and I started going out. We were married in April 1975, separated in January 1980 and divorced in May 1982. We haven’t had any sort of communication between us since then.
She isn’t active on the Internet, so I have very little knowledge of her life the last 41 years. The only thing I know is that she was married at least twice more, divorced from her second husband and widowed from her third. I saw a 1999 picture of her on her sister’s Facebook page. She was 45 at the time and still looked exactly as I remembered her.
No surprise there.
I checked in on her sister’s page a couple of times a year but never saw any newer pictures. Then I came across her Instagram page and saw a picture from 2022, when my first wife would have been 68.
The picture was of the two sisters, and the one I hadn’t known as well was instantly recognizable. But the one who had been my wife was completely unrecognizable to me. No matter how many times I looked at the picture, that expected moment of recognition never came.
What a strange feeling.
There are women I knew or dated years before I met my first wife who I haven’t seen in even longer, but when I see recent pictures of them, I recognize them instantly.
But not her.
I sent the picture to my two closest friends, both of whom knew her and were in our wedding in 1975. One agreed with me and had no recognition at all. The other, who had spent more time with her and had known her better said he wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t told him who it was but once he knew and looked carefully, he thought he could see her in the picture.
Still, no matter how many times I look at the picture, I still don’t see her.
It must be me.