Dream of Dobbs then add sugar

As I go back to the events that have caused (inspired) me to look at this business of aging there is genuinely only one at the very top of the list.

First and certainly foremost I am faced with the death of my wife after 42+ wonderful years of what was, for me, a perfect marriage.  Not many that I know can boast 43+ year long love affair with his best friend.  She died eight months ago here in our home.  Fortunately it was painless, quick and with absolute dignity.  The morning she died I helped her out of bed into her wheelchair and was pushing her toward the living room so I could prepare some breakfast.  On the way she asked if I thought I could manage a fried egg (you must understand that for our entire marriage I had been banned from the kitchen).  I told her that I thought I could as long as she didn’t expect it to be turned over.  We got to the kitchen on the way to the living room and she put her feet on the floor.  I told her that she had to hold them up or I couldn’t continue pushing.  She then just stopped breathing.

No one could ever be faced with a better way for his wife to die than that.  The day before we had been discussing Christmas dinner and the problems we would have with my having to try to cook from her instructions and complaints.  She had done the Times crossword, which she did every morning.  So, she was physically not well, but she was ‘all there’.  The plain fact is that her body just wore out.  She was 92 and had been suffering with many physical problems as her body aged.

Immediately it was the toughest time I have ever had in my life or ever will have.  After the wonderful life we have lived and shared and at my age, having accomplished professionally more than I could have dreamed of when I began all those years ago, the simplest thing would have been for me to join her.  I had and still have no emotional memory of life without her.  At the time there truly seemed no particular reason for me to continue because I had had a complete and wonderful life.

After coping with all the difficult physical and bureaucratic tasks of her death I had to come to some sort of decision about what I was going to do.  I did a lot of grieving, soul searching and driving to the bush and to the sea.  Finally I had to accept the fact that if I was going to be true and honest to the relationship that we had forged over all those years I had no choice but to get up and get out and continue towards being the best conductor I could and the kind of guy I knew she would want me to be.