We Were More Than A Contender

 

The Greeks said – was it the Greeks? – that you can't judge a life until it's over. Well, hers is over. Mine isn't, but hers is. So ours is. Or is it? Actually, I doubt it. I'm still married, it's just that my wife is dead.

“Dead.” That's such a Germanic word. “Passed.” Now, that's Romantic. And I like romantic, but I also like germanic, because it's blunt. But with Ann, I want it to be romantic. Because, after we met and fell in love in 1977, from then on, it was the two of us. We were like two atoms in a molecule, circling each other constantly, drawn together, defining the world in terms of the two of us. So, even though she is dead – that's the bluntness of it, the finality of it – I still see the world in terms of the two of us. The two of us. Even when we fought, even when we were dissatisfied, even when we were frustrated, it was the two of us.

So, I tried to do her justice, now that she's dead, when I gave my speech about her, her eulogy. You can read it and even see and hear it here. Eulogy is all the good stuff, all the praise, the case for her, without ignoring the reality of dilemmas of life, of challenges of life, of ambiguities of life. It's the emphasis and the tone that makes it a eulogy. It can be a trap. You can be led to sugarcoat, which I'm alert to, and maybe inclined toward, so I have to be careful. You can think, what's the harm in looking at the bright side, and who's going to object? The line between optimism and positivity and sugar-coating can be indistinct. I wonder what she would have thought. I don't know. She always surprised me. Her will to independence, especially of thought, was ineffable. It entranced me even as it frustrated me. But not always frustrated. She might have let me get away with thoughts, but she didn't have to agree with me. That was our relationship, back and forth.

So, at least you could say that our marriage has progressed to another stage, because I still carry her inside me, of course I do, because we loved each other and we were close to each other and we revolved around each other for 45 years. Maybe – you who know me well know that I think that virtually everything in life can be illuminated by a sports analogy – maybe we have gone to another season of our marriage, where one member of the team has retired. Their tradition lives on into the new season.

So, I keep remembering us together. I miss her at specific times. When the Supreme Court commits its outrage on Roe v. Wade, on the issue she was so passionate about, I want to share it with her. I want to share the trials and travails and the victories of the Warriors – that was more of my concern, but still, she was a willing participant. I miss her especially then, I want to share it with her, the way we did. Do I get sad that I can't? Yes, some, I do. But then I have an interesting reaction. I feel good about missing her. Every time I miss her, I realize how much I did love her. I did. So my sadness makes me happy.

I look around our house, which it sounds so strange and illegitimate now to call “my house.” It's still our house. I look around at the things we did together, and the things she did by herself. Deciding on making the old disused dining room into a TV room and buying everything in it together, or at least the couch and chairs and cadenza that the TV rests on. The tables she bought by herself, and the rug. We did well together, but she could do quite well by herself. It's us. I miss her, but it's good to have the stuff that was ours, that is ours. I like the memories, mixed with sadness, but that sadness makes me happy.

So then I think, maybe ultimate judgement is for others, but on the other hand, no one knows it intimately the way I do. So I can take my crack at it. What do I think?

Basically, I think we did it. We went the full distance, almost 45 years. We could have bailed. We could have been irreconcilable, we could have failed to put in the effort, we could have surrendered, we could have stopped working on it, we could have kept our distance, we could have undercut one another, we could have been bitter, we could have failed. We could have stopped caring. I could have resented her illness and taken advantage. So many things could have happened. We could have come apart. But we didn't.

We stayed together. In every sense of the word. We kept getting closer. We revolved around each other. We overcame the obstacles to be a functional pair, always improving. We stayed together spiritually. That's really the essence of it. We cared, and we helped.

One time a few years ago, before the pandemic, we were coming back home from Hawaii, arriving at OAK on the Hawaiian Airlines flight that gets in at about 8 PM. We grabbed a cab and were headed home. After 10 minutes of so, the cabby glanced at us and said, “Pardon me for asking, but how long have you guys been married?”

“I guess about 38 years now,” I answered. “Why?”

“Well,” said the cabby, “You know I get all kinds of people here, and I've never heard a couple speak so tenderly to each other. You wouldn't believe what I hear! People really tear each other up! But you guys are so tender.”

Me, I was unaware of it, I just thought we were doing what we usually do. But this cabby had a large store of experience. A wise cabby knows the score.

So what I think is this: we had a championship season that lasted 45 years. No “could have.” We did it. We had a championship season. We went the distance.

Budd Shenkin