March 3, 2017
"You May Want to Marry My Husband."
An excellent title for an excellent essay (in the NYT) by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. AKR is an author who is dying of ovarian cancer after 26 years of marriage to a man she finds a bright, humorous way to tell us about.
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21 comments:
Very pleasant and sweet article. If it frequently difficult to remind oneself that the really angry feminists aren't the norm for women. Most women do love and cherish their families as the men do the same. A very pleasant article to read and I thank you for linking this.
That is what my dying wife Sally said. It was one of many loving things she did while approaching death. It took me over a decade to find someone who appealed to me enough to ask her to follow Sally's advice. The wait was worth it, and so was Sally.
Tears. This couple clearly kept valuing the Little Things. When you are grateful for those Things the big things don't seem so big. It's crazy, but a good crazy.
Jason isn't perfect, but he was and is wonderfully perfect to her.
She will see his face again.
Btw, I would guess that Althouse and Meade value the Little Things.
Beautiful comment, David.
Darcy -- yes indeed. Thank you.
Goosebumps.
I'd like to say that I'd be as accepting and as selfless if I were facing an early death, but I'm afraid probably not.
Yes. It is the little things that make a relationship. Getting that cup of tea or coffee for each other without being asked. Remembering the favorite ice cream, cheese, music and surprising each other with it. Sitting quietly together reading books or separately but together on our individual computers pointing out interesting and funny things. Listening to the rhythmic breathing of the other lying in bed at night. Comforting, even IF he is snoring.
We often discuss in a joking manner who 'wants' to go first. But seriously, in that neither of us want to be left behind or left alone. That idea of the absence of the other is just daunting at our ages and after being together for so long. We need each other.
Seriously, although he is well able to take care of himself. Do laundry, cook, pay the bills etc. He also has friends and hobbies to keep busy. I would be so sad at the idea that he would be alone, at night, at home, without the companionship that comes from being emotionally and physically close to another person. Yeah yeah...get a dog.
I tell my husband if I am the one to go first, I want him to find a good woman who will love and be with him.......BUT.....Don't let her wear my jewelry!!!
:-)
I used to tell my wife if anything happened to her that I'd get a mail order bride catalog and "get me a woman from a country where they bow when you ask for something."
She'd reply that her plan was to use my insurance money to have a running trot line of deep tissue masseuses named "Sven" with low body fat.
We both agreed that a live-in maid/cook would be the second thing.
In reality I'm sure neither of us would do such a thing. Who'd want the help living in your house?
-XC
As a cancer survivor, I see this differently. The sweetness is cloying to me, as is the bragging. It's all self congratulatory, wrapped in the diagnosis. She doesn't say what her prognosis is - why is she so ready to check out? I have a friend with that diagnosis over a decade ago. No hope given. But then surgery somehow got it all, and she is happy and healthy many years later. Treatment is changing/advancing all the time. Cancer doesn't necessarily equal cancel. (If she revealed a terminal component to her diagnosis and I missed it, I apologize.)
I get the emotional turmoil that ensues after a diagnosis. I just don't think that is the time to publicly share all these innermost thoughts. Take a while and absorb/adjust. You may find what you share with the world will change dramatically after a little time passes.
It's a sad, powerful essay -- with an excellent sentiment. It struck me as too personal though. If I were dying of cancer, I don't think I would be writing for the NY Times about how wonderful my wife was, and how another man should marry her. I think that would take care of itself in due course.
It was nice to read about a woman's love for her husband, though. We don't see much of that in print these days.
Amy said...
As a cancer survivor, I see this differently. The sweetness is cloying to me, as is the bragging. It's all self congratulatory, wrapped in the diagnosis. She doesn't say what her prognosis is - why is she so ready to check out?
She does say she has only a few days to live so, depending on one's view of life, her prognosis is not good. I saw this as a love letter to her husband rather than an assay on the travails of being a cancer patient and in this context it was largely a success.
This needed a NSFW tag (we have a strict no sniffling rule at my office).
I got that she was prejudiced against white gumballs; that's sad; white gumballs deserve better. I would have been more interested in HER life, rather than her husband's many good qualities that were probably exaggerated in her Kubla Kahn morphine high.
I read a poem some years ago. The ending went something like "I will have to spent the rest of my life without her, and I didn't see how I could make it to noon." I think Jason understands.
My wife knows that the pistol in the floor safe is the treatment for whatever my terminal disease is going to be. She asks only that I don't do it on the new family room floor.
Actually, we all think we will be in control. More than likely I will be splattered all over, on some branch of the Eisenhower freeway system. Such is the demise of 40,000 of us each year.
Keep those organ donor cards handy!
Hope you use a throwaway, harryo, the coroner will probably keep your piece and that's a pity if it's a nice one.
It is the little things that make a relationship.
I cannot remember the last time I put gas in the car. Or cleaned (my hair) out of the bathtub drain. Or scooped the cat box. Or got rid of the vermin the cat kills. Or cleaned the slime out of the humidifier.
My husband does all the nasty jobs around the house. I don't care if he ever does anything on Valentine's Day as long as I don't ever have to stand out in the cold next to a gas pump.
Thanks for the pro-tip Bad Leuit.
I cannot remember the last time I put gas in the car.
I was married, before, and my first husband never did little things like that. Partly because he thought he was giving me what I thought I wanted (an equitable marriage, or something) and partly because he didn't care about me like that; it didn't occur to him to attend to little things so I didn't have to.
Not long after we started dating, my now-husband pulled into a gas station with a low tire. I started to get out to put air in and he looked at me like I had three heads. "Why wouldn't I do it? I'm on the right side of the car?" "I don't care--I love and respect you as an equal but my woman is not going to go crouch on the ground and fart around with a dirty tire while I sit on my ass in the warm car." He laughed derisively, and unbelievingly, that my first husband would have happily sat there while I took care of the tire. He told and showed me, for the first of many times, that as long as he has breath he will be looking out for and taking care of me.
He will probably go first, as he's ten years older than I, and I can't go with him if he does because we have relatively young children and I need to stick around for them for as long as I'm granted. But now that I have him, I cannot imagine living without him.
I guy I know was asked by his wife if, when she dies, would he remarry? He said, "well, maybe".
She then asked if he would live with her in this house? He said, "I suppose. It's paid for, and it's nice"
"Would you sleep with her in our bed?", she then asked. He said that it was a great bed, they'd paid a lot for it, and it would be wasteful not to.
"Ok" she said getting alarmed. "You wouldn't let her use my golf clubs, would you??"
Relieved, he said "no, honey. She uses left handed clubs".
- Krumhorn
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