On July 1, 2020, my life changed forever.

What should have been a regular Wednesday, hunkering down with my family just four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, was the day my husband died. He had two sudden massive heart attacks, and after trying to save him for 45 minutes, the paramedics had to let him go.

Life quickly became a blur of depression, sadness, disbelief and anger. I lost my 56-year-old husband. We had been married for 15 years, and he was my life partner.

I was overwhelmed. How was I going to take care of my two teenage daughters by myself? How would I ever recover from this?

The answers were just as surprising — and unpredictable — as my husband’s death.

It was another regular day some 14 months later, and I had to drive the kids to school. We were late. The kids were mouthing off at each other in the back seat, and I began yelling at my older daughter. She started crying, which made me cry, and I didn’t dare look at my younger daughter to see if she was crying. I dropped them off at school, feeling defeated.

On my way home, I stopped by the cemetery to visit my husband’s grave. I wanted to yell at him for leaving me with all this to do on my own. I wanted to cry with him and let him take in my tears of loneliness and grief. Over and over I said, “I just want to be with you.” I was not suicidal, but I felt that somehow, through some magical turn of events, it would be possible to be with him.

I asked for a sign. It was something I‘d never done before — I’m not prone to superstition — but I’d heard other widows talk about it. “Tony, please send me a sign that I should be with you. Or send me a sign that I should not be with you,” I said, before driving home and spending the day working.

About 5 p.m., I left the house to pick up my kids from school — right back on the 101 Freeway south through Hollywood, driving a mind-numbing 8 mph. I had been crying and upset, thinking that by the time I arrived at school, I would try to pull it together for the sake of the kids.

At the Sunset Boulevard exit, I absently looked at the car to my left. The driver was smiling at me. I smiled back and kept driving. A few moments later, when I looked in my rear-view mirror, I realized that the man in the car was trying to catch up, weaving through traffic to get next to me. He was in a black muscle car — a Dodge Charger.

My heart started racing. Was he crazy? Would he pull a gun on me? As I watched him in my mirrors, I had a feeling that this guy wasn’t going to hurt me. Just before my exit at Silver Lake, he pulled up alongside me and rolled down his passenger-side window.

“You are so cute. Are you married?” he asked. I hadn’t heard that question in years. I was caught off guard but somehow managed to squeak out “No.” He asked if he could give me his number. I took it, messaged him a quick “hi” and then exited the freeway.

David instantly started texting me, and just like that, we were having a conversation.

At 47 and a native Angeleno, I had never been picked up on the freeway before. Over the coming days and weeks, I told this story to my friends, and they too said they had never been picked up on the freeway. How bizarre. After all, Angelenos spend years of our lives slogging through traffic on the 101, the 405, the 110 and the 5, and this never happens, right?

I was pulling into the parking lot of the girls’ school when it hit me. That was the sign from Tony. It jump-started my pulse. It made me optimistic about the future. A realization exploded in me like a bomb: Tony didn’t want me to be with him. He wanted me to stay here and live my life to the fullest.

David and I texted each other incessantly for days. He was 17 years younger than I was, and we lived very different lives. At one point, he told me that he was a physical therapist and that he gave the best massages. Wait. We were flirting over text? I had never done this before, not even with Tony.

David and I met for coffee a few days later. There were no uncomfortable pauses. The only discomfort I felt was that I was at Starbucks on a date with someone other than Tony. The whole date was an out-of-body experience, like I was watching us chat from above. When David told me that he had the same last name as Tony, my married name, that was it. I was positive Tony had sent this guy to me. At the end of the date, David and I kissed. My body became electrified, as if I were waking up from a long slumber.

Over the next few months, David and I had fun. He just might have saved my life. I helped him through difficult times as well. Though it didn’t work out romantically, we are still friends.

My other friends suggested I get on the apps and start dating — strike while the iron was hot. I had to learn how to swipe right. For a while, it was the typical story of flakes, ghosting, horrible dates and bad sex. But I kept at it, bolstered by the idea that Tony was guiding me.

Now I am in a long-term relationship with a man whom I love. We’ve been together for almost two years. I still miss my husband every day and continue to love him and cherish him. Now I understand that Tony would never want me to suffer. I am also capable of holding all kinds of love at the same time.

Tony sent me a sign: Life is inexplicable. You never know who is waiting for you at the next stoplight.

The author took up writing as a hobby after her husband died. She lives in Hollywood with one daughter (her other daughter is away at college) and her fox terrier. She’s on Instagram: @stacykass

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

TikTok could go dark in the U.S. on Sunday, following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on the social media app unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, has said he’ll think about what to do next — on Saturday he said he would “most likely” delay the ban, which is scheduled to take effect on Sunday.

He could also continue with the ban and push for the sale of the Chinese-owned platform to a U.S. company, as the law passed by Congress last year requires.

In the meantime, the huge community of creators who post videos on TikTok have taken to the platform to share their feelings about a potential TikTok-less future.

“It feels like I am losing a really good friend — and that sucks,” said tearful TikToker Emily Senn, who has been contributing comedy and lifestyle videos to the platform over the past few years, and earning, she said, a steady income from these efforts. Beyond sadness, Senn’s “farewell to TikTok” video cycles through many emotions, from anger against the U.S. government for banning the platform (“I’m never forgiving you for this!”) to anxiety about the lost revenue stream. (“I’m worried about what I’m going to do financially.”)

Not all TikTok creators are laden with woe.

Others have been having a bit of grim fun — user Yanxiao1003 is among the many creators to post content mocking the idea that a Chinese spy might be hiding in their phones.

“We are not supposed to do this but I keep receiving requests from my viewers to review the privacy of the people we are watching,” he said, before going on to give information on the individuals he’d been “spying” on.

Lawmakers who passed the ban were worried about what they describe as national security risks posed by the app. They warn it could be used by the Chinese government to influence and surveil its more than 170 million American users.

The TikTok difference

Social media platforms often have limited lifespans. X bears little resemblance today to the Twitter of yore. And now-extinct platforms like Meerkat, Periscope and Vine are only a dim memory to many.

But TikTok, launched in 2016, quickly became a bastion for creative expression. The platform set itself apart from Instagram and Facebook because of the way its algorithms worked.

“Instagram is really all about who you follow. And based on who you follow, they’ll determine what content you see,” said Eric Dahan, CEO of the social media marketing company Mighty Joy. “You look at TikTok, it’s very content-driven. So it doesn’t matter who you follow nearly as much.  It’s really about what content you find interesting.”

Dahan said that’s why TikTok became such a large platform for creative discovery — where artists could share their work, go viral and build communities as well as their careers. The massive popularity of the BookTok literary community is a case in point.

“ The main sign of a social platform being successful is its ability to generate and spark a unique community,” Dahan said. “People that weren’t considered creators prior became influencers through TikTok organically.”

Making backup plans

Many creators have been seeking out TikTok alternatives in the past few weeks, with some migrating to Instagram or YouTube.

Others have been checking out potential creative homes on the Chinese apps RedNote and Lemon8.

In the days leading up to the TikTok ban, Lemon8 (which is owned by ByteDance, the same company that owns TikTok) soared to the top of the Apple App Store’s most popular lifestyle app list. And according to data shared with NPR from digital marketing agency Hennessey Digital, Google Trends data showed RedNote attracted nearly 2.5 million searches in less than 48 hours.

Some former TikTokers have been unapologetic in their decision to migrate to these Chinese-owned apps.

“You think I’m going to join a Chinese app supporting the Chinese government to go against my home country, America?” said TikToker Danisha Carter in a recent video. “You’d be absolutely correct. Here is my RedNote profile.”

Unclear future

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. government will also go after these platforms. It will still be up to the Trump administration to enforce the ban.

Trump alluded to the platform’s future in a message posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday. “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it,” Trump wrote. “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”

He told NBC on Saturday that he will “most likely” give the platform a 90-day extension from a potential ban, but had not made a final decision.

To some observers, TikTok’s permanent shuttering seems unlikely.

“ I think it will be a slow transition rather than just a complete shutdown,” said Hao Zheng, a research fellow at Curtin University’s Influencer Ethnography Research Lab in Perth, Australia.

And others, like influential TikToker Jools Lebron (of “very demure” meme fame), are expressing optimism about the future.

“It’s not over till the fat lady sings,” Lebron said in a post on TikTok on Friday. “We’re not giving up just yet. I just believe it’s going to be OK.”