When you live with and love someone for 50 years, you get at all: the fullness of youth, the blossoming of middle age, the challenges of getting old, memories of tenderness, vitality, decline, joy and sorrow.
I am a paternal type, a combination of care and anxiety that began in my relationship with my little sister. Four years younger than I, she was an emotionally sensitive little girl who slept with her closet light on until she was a teen. Afraid to go to grammar school, afraid to go to summer camp, afraid of the branches brushing against her window in the wind, occasionally at night I would awaken to her calling my name. “Larry…Larry…Larry! Larry! Her volume would get higher with each repetition. I would leave my room and go into hers. I felt protective and also worried about her. And so it was that with my wife of 50 years those same feelings of protection and worry rose to the surface. Norma was not my younger sister, however.
Norma was an older sister, and in her own way, spent her childhood and much of her adult life feeling protective and worrying about her younger siblings. Like me, she was a deeply caring person, but also fiercely independent.
My paternalistic style sometimes rubbed Norma the wrong way. “Mind your own business,“ she would say, when uninvited I would intrude upon her process or decision-making. When she made decisions that I thought were not in her best interest, it was very difficult for me to keep quiet. Finding the right balance between engaging and distancing was often a challenge as we entered old age together.
Older than I, and with more explicit medical difficulties than I have had, Norma‘s fortitude and stamina were impressive. She was determined and engaged with life right up to the day before she unexpectedly died. I’m not sure I have or would have the courage she displayed while enduring cancer treatments, and four joint replacements.
A few nights ago, I had a long and complex dream. In it, I was spending time with Norma as if she had not died and our life together simply continued. As it was in real life, in the dream she was old, physically fragile, and easily overwhelmed. And I was my usual paternal self, caring and worried. At one point in the dream she began to prepare to take a shower. Other people were around, the way they come and go sometimes in dreams. She undressed and modestly covered her nakedness with her arms. I sensed that she was increasingly uncomfortable, so I reached out to her, hugged her and leaned forward to gently plant a kiss upon her neck. As she did when alive, she relaxed and cooed with pleasure in response. It was an ecstatic, tender moment and when I woke up I was crying. The tender ecstasy stayed with me for the whole day, a welcome counterpoint to the agony of her being gone.
My psyche is still coming to grips with the impact of our 50 years together. Some dreams I have that include Norma just feel ordinary, then one like this happens and pierces my heart like Cupid‘s arrow. As hard as it was, it was also tender mercy.
