0:00

Discover new connections this season with

0:02

Bumble, the app that embraces all

0:04

kinds of dating experiences. Just

0:06

like Jess, who after a week on the app,

0:08

met Tata, and now they share a home in

0:11

Brooklyn with their beloved furry companions. No

0:13

matter what you're seeking, Bumble can help you

0:15

find what you're looking for, whether it's a

0:17

casual fling, a serious relationship, or a new

0:19

friend. So start your adventure

0:21

today by downloading Bumble and unwrap the

0:23

endless possibilities of the season. Love

0:29

now and always. Love

0:31

is stronger than anything.

0:33

I'm in love with love. And

0:35

I love you more than anything.

0:38

There's still love. Love. From

0:42

The New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This

0:44

is Modern Love. Zoe

0:47

Fishman had a big crush. She

0:50

couldn't stop thinking about this cute guy she

0:52

kept seeing on the train, and

0:54

she actually kept thinking about him for years.

0:58

She just had this feeling that they were

1:00

meant to be together. Here's

1:02

Zoe reading her essay, The Subway

1:04

Crush Who Crushed Me. We

1:11

met on the subway on a Saturday morning nearly

1:14

14 years ago. And

1:16

our meeting had been a long time

1:18

coming because he'd been my subway crush

1:20

for about six years. I'd

1:25

met him once or twice at those early

1:27

20s apartment parties in New York. The

1:30

ones with open bags of tortilla chips

1:32

on counters, cheap liquor

1:34

in red Solo cups, and

1:37

illicit activity happening in the bathroom

1:40

or right on the coffee table. He'd

1:44

been dating my coworker, Lana, and then he

1:46

wasn't dating her, but he was still around,

1:49

just out of sight and out of reach.

1:53

And I liked him a lot.

1:57

His name was Ronen, but to

1:59

me and my partner, friends, he was known as

2:01

that Israeli guy. And then months

2:04

later, he was known as subway crush.

2:07

I would see him sometimes in the morning on the

2:09

way to work at my stop

2:11

in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. I

2:14

would fidget on the other side of

2:16

the concrete pole separating us as

2:19

the F train pulled up. And

2:21

then I would watch him when the crowds parted. He

2:25

was tall with black hair. He had

2:27

a beard and these big hands. And

2:30

on the subway, he listened to music. He

2:32

read and I never

2:34

saw him with another woman. Then

2:40

roughly six years passed. Sometimes

2:43

months would go by and he would disappear.

2:46

Occasionally, I would ride the train with

2:48

some other guy and hope my subway

2:50

crush would see me with him. He never

2:53

did. I also never

2:55

saw him in the neighborhood, even

2:57

though he clearly lived nearby. When Renan

3:01

and I finally met that

3:03

fateful Sunday, my voice was

3:05

shaky. He was

3:08

with my old coworker Lana and

3:10

a man who turned out to be her new

3:12

husband. Renan had set them up. Lana

3:15

came up to me and said hello

3:17

and Renan followed. I said,

3:20

I see you on the subway

3:22

all the time. Way too

3:24

loudly. He said, I

3:27

see you all the time. And

3:29

his smile brightened up his face like a

3:31

light bulb. I

3:34

found myself squinting as it shone

3:36

down on me. And I smiled

3:38

back. A

3:41

week later, we went on a date. Six

3:44

months later, I moved in. One

3:47

year later, we were engaged.

3:49

And a year after that,

3:51

we were married. And I couldn't

3:53

believe I'd been right. And that

3:56

my intuition about Renan had been so

3:58

spot on. And

4:03

then the universe punched me right

4:05

in my smug, dumb face. Eight

4:10

years and two beautiful sons later,

4:13

Renen left for work from our

4:15

home in Decatur, Georgia, and never

4:17

came back. During

4:20

the day, blood vessels suddenly ruptured

4:22

in his brain, and he fell

4:24

into a coma that he never woke up from.

4:28

Then a week later, he died. Inside

4:33

that beautiful head, behind that

4:35

megawatt smile, had been a

4:37

ticking time bomb. It

4:40

was an arteriovenous malformation, which is

4:42

a rare tangle of abnormal blood

4:45

vessels prone to hemorrhage. No

4:48

one saw it coming. I

4:50

certainly hadn't. The

4:52

thought had never entered my mind that

4:55

Renen could be here one morning and

4:57

be gone by that same afternoon. The

5:00

day of the funeral, it was near

5:03

100 degrees, and the

5:05

sun beat down on the heartbroken crowd. Later,

5:09

my father would say to me, I've

5:11

never seen a crowd like that. It

5:14

was like JFK's funeral or something.

5:17

And it was. Sons

5:22

and family had flown in from all over

5:25

the world to pay their respects, not

5:28

quite believing that this kind of tragedy

5:30

could happen to Renen. He

5:33

was the kind of man that gave sparks

5:35

of life-affirming energy to everything he did. And

5:40

there I was, holding

5:42

the hand of our five-year-old, with

5:45

our two-year-old sucking a lollipop on my

5:47

lap. My sons

5:49

kept saying, Ima, Ima, Ima? Which

5:53

is a Hebrew word for mother, for

5:55

Nen was Abba and I was Ima. That's

5:58

how we worked. I

6:02

wondered what in the world had happened.

6:06

Never in a million years did I

6:08

foresee this. It

6:10

had no resemblance to my childhood and

6:12

I had nothing to compare it

6:14

to. How on earth was I going

6:16

to be a single mother? How

6:19

could it be that their father was gone? I knew

6:23

time would keep going on. We'd

6:26

all hopefully age but Renan

6:28

would be 44 forever. We'll

6:41

be right back. Discover

6:54

new connections this season with Bumble,

6:57

the app that embraces all kinds

6:59

of dating experiences. Just like

7:01

Jess, who after a week on the app met

7:03

Tata and now they share a home in Brooklyn

7:05

with their beloved furry companions. No

7:07

matter what you're seeking, Bumble can help

7:09

you find what you're looking for, whether

7:11

it's a casual fling, a serious relationship,

7:13

or a new friend. So start your

7:15

adventure today by downloading Bumble and unwrap

7:17

the endless possibilities of the season. It's

7:35

been two and a half years and

7:37

I look for him. Is

7:40

he that hawk circling overhead

7:43

or that butterfly flitting through the

7:46

backyard? I

7:48

don't think he is. I

7:53

have a recurring dream where he's left

7:55

me for another woman and I'm so

7:57

angry I want to scream. When

8:00

I tell my friend Pam about it, she

8:03

suggests that maybe the dream is my

8:05

subconscious, trying to give me an

8:07

explanation for his absence that makes some

8:09

kind of sense. But

8:12

why pile pain on top of pain? Couldn't

8:15

I just see him in a white robe? Couldn't

8:18

he just give me one of his famous hugs? I'd

8:23

prefer that. I

8:29

noticed that I don't trust my intuition like

8:31

I used to, but time

8:33

has pressed the sort of reset button on all

8:35

of my senses. And

8:37

now I understand the difference between

8:39

intuition and clairvoyance. Trusting

8:42

your gut and following your heart is

8:44

intuition. I'm no

8:46

clairvoyant and never claim to be, so

8:49

there is a difference. Just

8:52

because I failed to foresee Renee's death does

8:55

not mean I can't listen to that inner voice

8:57

in my head and that fluttering

9:00

of recognition in my chest. I

9:03

may be heartbroken, but I

9:05

would fall in love and marry Renee

9:07

all over again. I

9:11

would. Once

9:15

when we were dating, Renee said something to

9:18

me that I still hold deep in my

9:20

heart. We were people

9:22

watching in South Beach when

9:24

he turned to me and said, sometimes

9:27

I look at you and forget that you're

9:29

my girlfriend. And I think, God,

9:32

she's so beautiful. Like

9:35

you're a stranger, but then I realized that

9:37

you're not. I'm just so

9:39

proud. I'd

9:42

never heard something more romantic. It

9:44

didn't matter if other men saw me that way

9:46

or not. It was that he did.

9:50

And the fact that he'd say that to me, as steel

9:52

drums played and the sun set

9:54

in the pink sky, made my

9:56

heart explode into a million songbirds.

10:01

I see Renan and our boys, Ari and Lev.

10:05

Ari is seven and feels exactly like

10:07

Renan. He's tall and

10:09

thin, with yeti feet and impossibly

10:12

long toes. And

10:14

his face is Renan's, and so

10:16

are his facial expressions. He

10:18

was too young when Renan died to imitate

10:20

those expressions, but yet here

10:23

they are. I see

10:25

Renan's look of wonder, his goofy grin,

10:27

and the way his smile

10:29

lights up his brown eyes. There

10:32

he is. And

10:35

Lev, my four-year-old, he

10:37

resembles me more than Renan, but

10:40

it's the things he says. Renan

10:42

used to tell me to hug him harder. Harder,

10:45

he would say, until I could barely

10:48

breathe. Lev says

10:50

the same thing, with the exact

10:52

same inflection. Our

10:54

boys channel him. They say

10:56

things that knock the wind out of me. Once,

11:03

I was sitting poolside, bare-faced

11:05

and dripping, at my friend's parents'

11:07

house in Florida. And Lev

11:09

stood in the shallow end and looked at me. Really

11:15

looked at me. He

11:18

said, Eema, you look

11:20

so beautiful. Another

11:23

time, I was putting Ari to sleep, and

11:25

before I left the room, he said, Eema,

11:29

you're more beautiful than you think you are. These

11:35

are not the normal kinds of things I imagine

11:37

little boys saying to their mother, not

11:40

with this kind of eerie, otherworldly

11:42

conviction. And I

11:44

swear, I haven't bribed them. The

11:47

only explanation I can come up with

11:49

is Renan, speaking through them.

11:52

It's what he would say to me now if he

11:54

could. If he were

11:56

here like he should be. Intuitively,

11:59

absolutely. Absolutely, I feel

12:01

this in my bones. I

12:04

hear him in their voices. Time

12:09

has replanted a few seeds of optimism in

12:11

the new forever altered soil of

12:13

me. My

12:16

heart can and should still be

12:18

followed. And

12:20

I am grateful for the growth. If

12:29

you want to hear my conversation with Zoe

12:32

Fishman, our last interview of the season, you

12:34

can check it out in the Modern Love's podcast

12:36

feed. It's a really beautiful one. Modern

12:46

Love is produced by Julia Botero,

12:48

Christina Joseph, and Reva Goldberg. It's

12:51

edited by Mark Bagan. Our executive

12:53

producer is Jen Poiant. This

12:56

episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our

12:58

show is recorded by Maddie Maciello. The

13:01

Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original

13:03

music by Dan Powell and Papa Cusker. Digital

13:07

production by Mahima Chablani and Nell

13:09

Gologli. The Modern Love

13:11

column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia

13:13

Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.

13:16

I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening. Thank

13:28

you.