December 19. It’s my birthday. I am 38 years old today and not sure what that means. I am having dinner with my girlfriend and she is telling me all the details of tomorrow. Tomorrow we must wake up early and start preparation for the big festivities that are about to ensue. We need to get to the courthouse and sign the license to become husband and wife and then there is a ton of shopping for suits and dresses. There will not be many people in attendance but it is the biggest day of our relationship. Tomorrow is the day we become husband and wife. The day in which we make the commitment that we will be together forever. I could not really understand all the fuss, I already made that commitment about two years ago when she and I decided that we will be together. To me that was all that is needed. There is no license that can grant fidelity and no court capable of guaranteeing everlasting love.
She wanted to get married and, privately, I questioned the wisdom of such a decision. All that will do is tangle up the relationship in legal terms and complicate the separation should either of us ever decide that we made a mistake. But I smiled and shook my head in agreements. I feigned excitement when the question of pictures had come up and participated as earnestly as I could in the discussion regarding the most appropriate color for the dress considering the circumstances that it is not her first marriage. By the end of dinner we had agreed on a cream colored dress for her and a dark gray suit for me. She seemed really happy and that made me happy.
The next day everything went as planned. It was a successful marriage. What she did not know is that fraction of a second immediately following the point where I'm asked if I would take her as my wife and before an affirmation is given by me. That fraction of a second in which my whole life replayed itself in all the painful details of all the previous unsuccessful relationships that ended without marriage, some with tears, others with anger and most with both of us accepting the bold facts before us. In that fraction of a second, after the extensive review of my prior unsatisfying life, I resolved to say “no” for my answer to the question before me. Yet, in the next fraction, I could see the miserable future that awaited us both if I said no. She will refuse to be with me ever again and I will regret making someone, who I cared for so much, miserable. I cannot allow that. So a “I do” came out and we became husband and wife.
We lounged around the casino for a few days and then went home and back to our normal daily lives. We went back to the daily routine of work, kids and the hassle of living. There did not seem to be much of a change. The kids need new clothes or new gym bags or any number of things that modern kids seem to always need and we took care of it just like we have done for the previous couple of years. Marriage was not so bad. It made my wife happy to know that I made that commitment which I had already made but I guess she needed the confirmation of formality.
One evening I came home from an especially tiring workday and my wife was complaining of pain in her back. I reached into the medicine bag we kept stashed in the closet and got some muscle relaxants that I gave her with instructions. “You probably pulled a muscle while doing something around the house. Just take these and get some rest and you will feel much better in the morning,” I said. I went into the bedroom and stretched on the bed. Before long I had fallen asleep, fully dressed and with shoes on. It must have been a harder day than I thought.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by the whispering moans of my wife. I asked and was told that the pain she had experienced earlier did not subside but grew sharper and was now unbearable. I had her get dressed and I threw some water on my face to help me regain consciousness. Then we drove to the emergency room. When we got there, the clock on the wall read 11:37. As I filled in the paperwork, the nurse, a kind looking even though seemingly young lady, questioned my wife and before I could finish filling out all the required forms, the nurse decided that my wife needed to be seen immediately. She was suffering a heart attack.
The surgery was successful, we were told. It was not. A second doctor determined that the first one had messed up and the surgery was not enough to clear the blockage in the arteries and a second surgery will be needed. The second surgery seems to have eliminate the pain that my wife felt after the first. The medical costs were piling up and the cost of all the medications that had to be taken to preserve my wife’s health was merciless. So I took a second job and worked harder to make sure that I can provide for my family. Along with the extra work was the added responsibility of trying to raise the daughters I acquired when I married my wife. They had to be raised right and the only way to do that properly was to dedicate enough time for them. So I did that too.
The years passed and at times my wife would seem better and then we would have setbacks and will be rushing to emergency rooms in the middle of the night. The daughters have grown up and they are their own women now and did not require more of my time. We had added three grandchildren to the fold of the family and they were the delight at the end of each day. During that time, my world had shrunk to encompass only the people who needed me, my wife, my daughters and my grandchildren. They were all that mattered and everyone else that I had known before this transformation had faded from my memory. I loved my wife, loved my children and loved my grandchildren. I loved them all so much that I had given up everything that I had known before them and unwittingly, everything that is to come.
It’s November and 12 years had passed since that day in which I said “I do” to the justice of the peace who pronounced me married. In one month it will be thirteen years of marriage and a total of 16 years of family life. I awoke around midnight by the noises that blasted in the house. My daughter was visiting and her and my wife were laughing so hard they woke me up. I was flooded by the sense of contentment that only true happiness can bring, simply smiled in the dark, said nothing and went back to sleep. The next morning, I was awakened by my daughter. My first thought was that she must have stayed somewhat late and spent the night. But she was waking my up with a certain amount of worry in her voice, “Dad, please come and see what’s wrong with Mom, She’s not waking up”
I slid out of bed and walked into the living room. My wife was laying on the sofa motionless, she had fallen asleep on the sofa and now she’s not waking up. I walked up to her and shook her to wake up but there was not the slightest response. I felt her pulse around the neck and there was none. She was cold and peaceful with eyes closed and what I remember as a slight smile on her face. “Call 911” I told my daughter and the cold response that shaped the reality of this morning came back, hollow and scared, “I don’t want to.” she said hesitatingly. The reality of what had transpired during the night is clear to both of us but we refuse to accept it. I collected all the courage left in me and calmly turned and looked into her saddened face “Honey, call 911”. I never figured out why I left it to my daughter to make that dreadful call. Later, as I recalled that moment, I had played a few scenarios none of which reflected well on my perception of who I am. I wondered if I was grief stricken by the fatality of being so close to someone with no sign of life, if I was at the precipice of a breakdown and making the call would accelerate the process, or was I simply a coward who could not take charge of the reality that was before me. My daughter made the call and the sirens came blasting within minutes. The medics confirmed what we already knew. My wife is no more.
My wife, in the blink of an eye changed from a person to a memory. A memory that will fade with time until only the name and some faded pictures are left. My oldest granddaughter can no longer remember the details of the face of the person who once was her grandmother. She still has all the happy memories that formed her childhood, but they are memories with a ghost now; a shapeless, faceless person who once existed and who once loved and cried and went through all the emotions that all beings seem to experience during their short time of being.
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