The other night, in that final moment of clarity before drifting into hypnagogia, I said to Rosellen, “I don’t think I say I love you often enough.” I’m not sure what impelled me to say it at that moment, but there was definitely a touch of fear that I might not wake up the next morning. I’m writing this two days before my 86th birthday, a point in my life when thoughts like that are increasingly more present.
I’ve tried before to describe this state of mind where the awareness of death’s proximity rides close to the surface without clouding the sense of joy and gratitude for being alive and continuing to dodge the many bullets that could mark the end – or the beginning of the end. Not too long ago, I wrote an entry in my blog that described the number of medical appointments on my calendar, many of which could portend that ending. So far, the messages have been lacking in drama, but I know that won’t always be the case. I have another session coming up the day after my birthday, and wouldn’t it be ironic if that were the one to break my winning streak. (spoiler alert: it didn’t.)
I want to return to the love message that I began with. In the days of innocence preceding our marriage, we made the very unromantic vow that we would, without complaint or hesitation, clean up each other’s vomit when the need arose. In those heady days of seemingly boundless health that promise seemed almost abstract. Not so now, when love is reflected not so much in moments of passion than in moments of need. Again, we’ve been lucky that, so far, those needs have not been extreme, but even so there are more and more times when our physical limitations require caring assistance from each other.
A few examples: This year, tending the garden has fallen more to me, as Rosellen’s mobility and endurance have diminished. To her credit, she’s still able to handle a lot of the watering. I try not to do too much at each visit, but sometimes it can’t be helped. So, on the day in question, I came home completely spent. Our division of labor, typical in many families, is for Rosellen to cook while I return the kitchen to some semblance of order afterwards, but that day she saw that I wasn’t up to fulfilling my end of the deal and ordered me to sit still while she finished up. Similarly, I always have to be attuned to the limitations of her own energy and mobility. What do I need to carry for her, open for her? I have to be aware of how far is too far to walk. How aware do I need to be of the pain she is experiencing and how that is coloring her mood and state of mind?
That’s what love looks like in the 63rd year of marriage. It may surprise some of you that there is still room for taking pleasure in each other’s bodies, but beyond that there’s a sense of payback for all the incredible moments that accrue before the leaner years arrive. There’s still time for lots of delight and new memories, but the balance is tipping toward more trying moments
I don’t play the piano, but I’ve always thought there was something special about four-handed pieces. When I arrived at this point in the piece, I felt like it wouldn’t be complete without her voice, so I stepped across the hall to where she was reading and invited her to join me. So here she is, albeit reluctantly.
Yes, Rosellen here, yes reluctantly because I think Marv’s said what needs to be said, just as what he apologizes for not saying often enough is not something I need: His every bit of attentiveness, whether practical or simply tender, says it all. I think a lot of people would find our marriage laughably boring: very few disagreements, astonishingly frequent moments when we turn out to have been thinking the same thing whether it’s what to have for dinner or how to spend our time or our money. Our (short -legged) strides match.
It’s interesting to me to reflect on our earliest, or almost earliest, time together. We barely knew each other; it was, by all measures, incredibly foolish to decide to get married, and when we did announce our engagement, instead of planning a wedding months or years out like so many (who had already dallied making their decision to marry), we officially joined hands two months later in a small, quiet ceremony. I’m very indecisive about many things but, inexplicably, I was not about my choice of “mate” – funny word! My mother was appalled that I was marrying someone who, with marginally solvent immigrant parents who lived in a 3-room apartment and no “yichus” – Yiddish for legacy, pride of ancestry. She herself had emigrated as a child and maybe that made her even more resentful of my choice. It turns out that not only was she openly unenthusiastic about my decision but, I recently learned, she actually phoned my sister-in-law to ask, “How can we stop this?”
Well, she didn’t stop it. I shrugged and got on with my own life and, no surprise, since getting to know someone helps in one’s evaluation, she ended up adoring him.
Of course everyone knows, or should know, that the sabre-sharp edges of passion are sanded down by the years, but as I must have intuited, satisfying lives turn out to be a mosaic of ordinary moments, of shared memories and profound allegiances. There could be no other way.
Ever the narcissist (like most writers) whose writing has helped me to understand things I didn’t know I knew, I’m going to end this by quoting myself. A long time back I published two books of poems in the modest voice of an unschooled New England woman named Cora Fry. The first book begins with Cora musing
I want to understand light years.
I live in Oxford, New Hampshire.
When, then, will the light get to me?
A lot happens to Cora and in the second book, having endured a marriage to a man she calls Fry that’s been a lot less satisfying than mine, she pays tribute, not even grudging, to what lasts:
Me buttoned into my flannel,
Stretched out on a sheet of cotton candy stripes
I’ve bought and washed, bleached, folded, stacked –
Marlene, Marilyn, Madonna, none of the silky sultry heroines
ever whispered, “Time to buy a new mattress, darling,
this one’s gone soggy,” or chased the dog off the quilt
when he’s left, like a spray of pine needles after a storm,
half his spiny coat. The three delicious M’s make the bed
ride soft as a boat on water. No one but a wife
worries if the springs are shot.
I know he feels it too, Fry does. He must, thermal tights
and baggy boxer shorts heaped on the chair together –
less than he hoped,
back when even a boy is a dreamer. Enough
or not enough? That, like the nap on corduroy,
seems to depend on the light. His thick back’s sturdy.
a tree stump against my own, and mine is –
I can’t imagine. Ask him.
So many years of breathing in ragged
unison. Drifting away on a sentence. Rolling together
in that soft, deep runnel down the center of the bed.
When the thunder’s bad, we still stay up like kids, singing.
I heard him laugh once in his sleep.
Is this what the light years bring?
