Woman finds love with dead husband’s best friend

A woman who “never wanted to be with anyone” after the shock death of her husband has found an unlikely romance with his best friend.

Rochelle Pitts’ world was shattered when her husband of 13 years, Jesse, was killed in a tragic car accident three days before Christmas in 2020 – leaving her six months pregnant with the couple’s fourth child.

Following the birth of her youngest child, Rochelle, 32, expected she would raise her children – Chloe, 12, Oraia, 9, Raiden, 7, and Wren, 1 – alone and never have a second chance at love, New York Post reports.

“After my husband died, I never wanted to be with anyone ever again,” Rochelle said.

She explained the thought of considering another relationship made her feel “sick” and as though she was “cheating”.

Rochelle Pitts (left) was left grief-stricken when her husband Jesse (pictured, with family) died in a car crash. She has since found love with Jesse’s best friend. Picture: Jam Press

“I also had four children and was alone, so how could I even begin to date?” she said.

However, an unlikely source of comfort emerged in the form of her late husband’s best friend, Scott.

The pair started to develop their own friendship about six months after Rochelle’s husband’s death.

That was when Rochelle realised they shared many similar traits. It was not long until the platonic friendship began to undergo a change, though she had her worries.

“I was apprehensive to date him, one main reason being that I knew no one would understand us,” Rochelle said. “It started slow. We would watch movies together and he’d help me out in the yard or with random things in the house.”

Rochelle said that Scott – above, with her daughter, Wren – has been very respectful of her husband, Jesse, who died in late 2020. Picture: Jam Press

It wasn’t until Scott asked her on a date that she knew that she was wrong about her misgivings.

“He has seven siblings; he understands grief because of his own experiences with death in his family, and he cares about my children,” Rochelle said. “Our grief doesn’t faze him.”

Rochelle and her family were consumed by sorrow following her husband’s unexpected death.

“Immediately after he passed, life was extremely chaotic – we all cried constantly,” Rochelle said.

At the time of the accident, Rochelle was six months pregnant with her youngest daughter, Wren, who she said is the spitting image of her father. Her birth was particularly difficult as she arrived just weeks after Jesse’s death.

Rochelle is shown at her late husband’s bedside after a car accident on December 22, 2020. Picture: Jam Press

Rochelle recalled how during her cesarean section, she could hear everything since her husband and his “excitement” were not there to “calm” her through the procedure.

“With Wren, I heard every noise,” she said. “I heard the doctors say where to make the incision, I could hear them cutting things, I could hear the sounds of the suction.”

After his death, Jesse’s organs were donated and reportedly helped save four lives on Christmas day. Still, Rochelle’s emotions continue to run high.

According to Rochelle, her fourth child, Wren, is ‘identical’ to her father. Picture: Jam Press

“It has been about a year-and-a-half since he died,” she said. “It still hurts every day, but now it’s different.”

She explained that Scott has been respectful of her needs, knowing that she and her late husband met in their teens while they were both working at a restaurant.

“He also honours Jesse’s memory; when we first had a sit-down dinner together, he pulled up a separate chair and left Jesse’s usual seat empty,” she said. “He still does this.”

Rochelle, who is now a paralegal studying to be a lawyer, said that it is important for her to grieve publicly. As such, she launched a now-viral TikTok account about her life, as well as a website, Untitled Grief of a Young Widow.

“Before I was a widow, I may have raised an eyebrow if I saw a widow date her husband’s best friend after his passing,” she said. “But now that I am a widow, I understand that this is so normal.”

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission