Thoughts on Finality

I have been cut in half. A widower. Alone for the first thirty-one years. Sharing our lives for nearly fifty-four years. Alone again to the end. Left with what has been called a heavy heart. She would have been ninety in several months. That sounds like a good life-span, doesn’t it. And a nicely lengthy marriage, right? What more could you ask for?

Well, I’d like to tell you. I am six weeks, or forty-two days (and counting) from the beginning of this greatest loss that anyone might experience, if you loved as much as I have. The weeping will not cease. How do I weep? Tears, and a face full of anguish, with some muffled sound. And words, “Why?” “I miss you so.” I cannot write that without welling up.

You will, too. Someday.

May I advise you? There are some aspects that may help you anticipate this event that must surely be realized beforehand. You should not care how long in the future your event may take place. Be ready for it!

For your basic information:

There is a book, entitled, The Checklist of Life.

There is a book, To Our Children’s Children.

There is another book of peripheral interest. The Homeowner’s Record Keeper.

Those are books of ideas. Some of my ideas follow, ideas I wish I had had before now, but did not. The lonliness could be assuaged to a great extent by these means.

My sons enjoy calling me because they can hear her voice on the answering machine. Doesn’t that suggest something to you? That is but a scrap of what could have been. Start now, when you are both young, systematically building a video or film library or scrapbook of active events, voices and images in typical behavior of each of you. I’d bet millions already have that substantially ongoing. You will treasure it when you are again alone.
The technology for that is now rather cheap and easy to handle.

• Make voice recordings of serious interactions on the feelings and thoughts of each of you on serious topics of end-of-life issues;
• what should be done with the remains, buried or cremated;
• how you want your estate divided;
• the enumeration of everything in the estate;
• what pieces of furniture and clothing and other items in the “hardware” of your life should go to certain people, or otherwise disposed of.
• Where are all the keys kept?
• Where are all the important papers, tax forms, wills, deeds, bank statements, and so forth?
• What bills are to be paid and how are they paid? It is important that both have full knowledge of home accounts. Some spouses have full control of those accounts and do not instruct the mate in those procedures. Accounts should be set up with the latest accounting procedures which can be understood by both partners.

One very important issue is this, making a living will concerning the extent of measures to be taken to save your life. There is the DNR, “Do Not Resuscitate”, order to doctors. There will be family discussion of issues surrounding the “Quality of Life” that the person will have after resuscitation. What “quality of life” is must be discussed well before the serious event occurs. Is he or she to be kept alive at all costs? How serious will the debilitation be? Such an issue must be discussed in every family, while they have health and full control of their thinking. What does each family member want?

Visit each photo-portrait of family forebears, ancestors, hanging framed on the home walls. Get all those who know the names and dates behind those pictures to tell you, as you write down, the names and dates of those folks who constitute your youngsters’ blood line.

It should be arranged so that the one who can cook and keep house the best should be the last to die.

I can see a couple, while both are very healthy, lying in bed, in the dark, before going to sleep, over a period of time, having important conversations about the many aspects of life about which each is curious how the mate sees it. The list of topics is bottomless.
“If I were suddenly taken away, what do you think you might do?”
“Would you stay in this house?”
“In this town?”
And so it would go, one question of “what if” leading to another.
I cannot say that I personally had that talk often. But I have imagined having it often. I think it would be interesting, and very important, anticipatory talk.

I believe that the perfection of a relationship can be raised by mutual curiosity, fidelity, loyalty, and openness. All topics are permissible, submissible, and tolerated. Ideally, in talk, all things are possible. Mutual trust, curiosity, loyalty, fidelity. No secrets. And most important: two-way traffic of love-talk. Each enumerating the qualities of the other. Spontaneously. Out of the blue. Because the one takes acute notice of the other, is an astute observer of the other. Thus constantly affirming the sterling, no, golden quality of the relationship, rejoicing in it. Celebrate it out loud, at times actually jumping and squeaking all for it! Make up and give a cheer, yea rah! for it. Catch him or her in his or her unawares.

In any final pronouncement, can you say, you never fought? never argued? worked out differences amicably? compromised at crucial times? traded favors equally? affirmed out loud that you have had a good partnership, and felt it strongly?