Today is our anniversary. Jon and I were married 45 years ago today. Which makes this a good day to revisit a thought I stumbled across earlier this week, which is — Jon may be gone, but our love is immortal.
No worries. I’m not going to get all cheesy and sentimental here. I won’t be laying any overwrought lyricism on you. I just want to share a helpful thought I had earlier this week. (I was in the shower, where my biggest Big Thoughts tend to lurk, waiting for me to get naked mentally as well as physically.)
Do We Evaporate Into Nothingness?
But first a story from my 20s, from before I met Jon. Like most people of any age, I was worried about dying. I didn’t want to do it, but it seemed kind of inevitable. And so far, no one I knew had figured out how to avert mortality. It looked like one day I, too, would evaporate into nothingness.
I brought the subject up with an older friend. He was a psychiatrist, and, being young, I figured that he — as an older person trained in psychiatry — might have special insights into how to get around this death thing.
And he did. He actually did.
“I don’t want to die,” I said. “Do I have to?”
“Well, yes. You do. And I do too,” he said (in so many words).
“I’m going to die,” he said. “But here I am, alive right now. I have lived a life and nothing can change that. Nothing can take that away from me. Nothing, not even death, can change the fact that I was here — on this planet, at this particular point in all of time.”
That helped. And it has helped me over the years. I think of my friend and this bit of wisdom often.
(He must be dead by now. The Christmas cards I sent to him started coming back as undeliverable a decade or two ago. But, of course, like he said: once upon a time he was, and nothing can change that.) And so . . .
Just Us
And so, this week, as the 45th anniversary of marriage with Jon approached, I got to thinking about how the life and the loyalty that Jon and I shared (along with the spats and the tussles) was eternal. Nothing can change the fact of it, not even Jon’s death a year ago. It just is.
There we were, a married couple for 44 years, raising children, remodeling a house, debating where to hang the Navajo rug and whether artichokes for dinner twice in one week was too much artichoke. There we were, nurturing something that most people would call love, but we thought of simply as “us.”
There we were, doing something that can never be erased. Doing something that moved me to succumb to today’s cornball headline: “Our Love Is Immortal.”
Because it is. Seriously.
More about those artichokes in last week’s post, “It’s Been a Year, and He’s Still Gone.” More about that marriage at “A Marriage Proposal — The Man Said, ‘Yes'”
Thanks again for some uplifting thoughts on our lonely lives, living without our other half for the past year. Your thoughts as a 20 year old were so mature, and thankfully you had help from a mature adult who took you seriously. Your thoughts have been very welcome and appreciated this past year. We were lucky to have had the love we shared with our spouse…which we continue to feel.
Yes. We are very lucky. Not everyone gets to have what we had — have!
I will be 77 yrs. old this March 16, 2022 and since I have been in the 70’s, not one day passes that I [don’t] think about the death. Will I know I am dead? Will my ending be painful? You have given me some more information about this. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Jim Loarie
Jim, thanks for sharing this wonderful question: Will I know I’m dead? What a thought!
Another beautiful riff on love and life. Uncle Jon has gone back into the fabric of space and time ready for something else, and we are still on earth enjoying him in our lives. Your writing gives me hope.
And I liked your reaction to the idea of death: “I didn’t want to do it, but it seemed kind of inevitable.” Reminded me of how I feel about eating an entire sleeve of Thin Mints in one sitting.
Also, it’s pretty clear you said your vows in the 1970s, judging by your officiant’s style.
Yes. The officiant was Father Jim Seipel of Valencia, an Episcopal priest, which is my denomination. Scott helped me locate him. He left a message on Fr. Seipel’s phone, asking to call back because, “I want to throw some business your way.”
As for the Thin Mints. No comment.
Really good.
Thank you, Linda. Thanks for the encouragement.
❤️
Love reading your column. You are teaching mem.
🙂 Thank you!