Yesterday we took the bus tour to Fisterre and Muxía, the end of the known world in the Middle Ages. They are both part of the Coste de Morte which continues north to A Coruña. Muxía was actually the final destination for Tom (Martin Sheen) in the movie The Way where he spread the last of his son’s ashes in the sea on the rocky coast. It’s actually illegal to do so on the coast of Spain but many people do it anyway and many others will bring a tangible object of their lost loved one and toss it into the sea as a final farewell. Many of the things that people toss into the waters as a final farewell don’t make their way so quickly out into the open ocean, they tend to drift back and forth for a time and often end up back on the rocky coast. A final farewell isn’t always smooth or easy.
The tour included a typical Galician meal served family style in a typical Galician restaurant. Hannah and I sat at a table with a 60ish couple and their adult daughter from Cadiz and an 80ish couple from Valencia. Of course everyone talked about their families and passed around their i-phones displaying family photos. The man from Valencia spoke about when he met his wife more than 60 years earlier. He said it was love at first sight. I believe in love at first sight. I really do. Actually I believe in love at first contact.
I remember my first contact with Cary. It was late September of 1982. A work out buddy of mine had told me about a new young lawyer who had just started working at his lawfirm. He said she was pretty and smart and maybe Jewish and that I should meet her. I didn’t show much interest at the time but within a couple of days I did meet her by happenstance. I had returned from the Y where it was my custom to work out during the lunch hour and was standing in the lobby of my building waiting for the elevator holding the sandwich I had purchased for my lunch. I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a sweet mischievous but unfamiliar voice, “excuse me but what is that?” And pointing at my sandwich she continued, “you’re not actually going to eat that, are you?” It was my regular lunch at the time, whole wheat bread, turkey and tomatoes with a double portion of sprouts sticking out on all sides. We rode up in the elevator together. She exited on the 8th floor. Whether it was the touch of her finger when she tapped me on the shoulder, the sound of her voice, the smell of her perfume or the sight of her, I can’t say but by the time I got to my office on the 18th floor, I knew I was smitten. I immediately phoned my friend and asked him if the girl that he was telling me about officed on the 8th floor, if she had dark hair, if she had a nice smile and bright eyes. He gave me her name and phone number. I immediately phoned her introducing myself as the guy whose sandwich she had just insulted. We took up with each other right away but within a few weeks a complication arose when her high school boyfriend showed up (unexpectedly she said) with all his belongings and moved into her apartment.
So I had to first best him and then all the other young white-collar male professionals in downtown San Antonio who stood in line to date her. After over 2 and a half years of on again off again dating and a deepening friendship with enough twists and turns to make a couple of good romantic comedies, I was somehow able to convince her to marry me and when she did I cherished her.
So I believe in love at first sight or love at first contact, really, I really do.
I also believe in the type of love that grows over time between two people who for whatever reason agree to form a partnership, who commit to a joint venture to build a life together and hold steadfast. The love that grew between Tevya and Golda through 25 years.
The summer of our 25th Anniversary, we went to Spain with Emily. We toured Madrid, attended the Batalla de Vinos festival in Haro, visited Barcelona and after depositing Emily at her study abroad program in Valladolid, Cary and I returned to San Sebastián where we had been on our honeymoon. We dined at Arzak 25 years to the day after we had dined there as newlyweds. Cary made the reservation almost a year in advance. Sr. Arzak greeted us on arrival. We marveled at the success his enterprise had enjoyed over the intervening 25 years. We marveled at the success our enterprise had enjoyed over that same period both feeling with certainty that nothing either of us could ever have accomplished individually could ever have been as grand as what we had accomplished together. I feel pretty sure that at that point in time, after a quarter century together, even if we had never had those first magical moments and even if our marriage had been arranged by our parents that neither of us would have felt any differently about the other or our life together.
And then we experienced another dimension, a dimension that arises when one of you is diagnosed with a deadly incurable desease. I was terrified because I knew from reading the medical literature what the medical professionals were reluctant to say, that if the desease ran it’s expected course, my remaining time with Cary and the children’s remaining time with their mother would be very limited. There really was so little that could be done but there was one thing that I knew I could do. I could show Cary more love than I ever had before which was easy to do because I loved her more then than I ever had before.
Of course, the roller coaster ride of GBM, like any roller coaster, isn’t all downhill. There were periods after surgeries or treatments or therapies when Cary was better and we were able to enjoy quality times together as a family. And Cary and I had quality time together just the two of us. Many days we would spend sitting together in our bedroom at home in San Antonio, watching television, sometimes talking when she could, sometimes holding hands, more often just sitting quietly together. At times I would feel Cary’s eyes on me, I’d look up from my crossword puzzle and she would be looking at me as if I had just hung the moon. I don’t know that I ever felt more at peace or that I ever felt better about myself or that I ever loved her more than in those precious moments.
But the desease is relentless, it whittles away sliver by sliver, chips away bit by bit, at the mind and body of the person you love. But we are not our minds and we are not our bodies so as each sliver is whittled away, you double up on your devotion to her and as the desease chips another bit away, you double up again. Until there’s almost nothing left but the warm soft feel of her palm as you sit at her bedside holding her hand. But that’s OK, it really is, you’re fine with that, you really are, you could sit there forever holding her hand, because you now love the warmth and softness of her palm infinitely more than you ever loved the whole of her and she loves you. And then in one immeasurable fraction of a microsecond that’s gone too. She’s passed into the world to come and you are left alone in this world. You’re by yourself, all alone, terribly alone.
Everyone tells you that she had been through enough and you know that she had been. They tell you that you were a good husband and had done all that could be done, and you think you were and believe you had, that in the end you hadn’t lost very much because there wasn’t much left of her to lose but that last part, that last part, that’s not true because in that final instant you know you lost everything.
And what do you do now? Your purpose in life had been to care for her and to comfort her, to shield and protect her from any unnecessary pain or discomfort or indignity, to do everything within your power to ensure that she was never alone, that she never felt afraid, your greatest competence assuring her that in spite of it all, despite everything, that she was just as beautiful and special as she had ever been. And now what? Indeed what now?
As a boy I heard it said that one of the most important things a man can do for his children is to love their mother.
I guess that if I never did anything else for anyone else in my life, at least I’ve done one important thing for my children, I loved their mother dearly. But it was easy to love Cary, everyone did.
G-d bless you always Carebear
Buen Camino
