Modern Love, Modern Death…

By Linda Lovas Hoeschler, February 16, 2023

Almost 8 months after my husband’s death from advanced prostate cancer, I began to shudder, to feel a dread in a way I had never experienced. As this unease continued, with no apparent root, I decided to check my (primarily medical) diary of my husband’s 13-month long decline and death.

On that same day, 12 months before, I had recorded: When I go to bed, Jack notes that for the first time he is anxious about this news (dismal genetic and medical reports from his doctors) since it shortens the time frame we had hoped for. Up until that date, and just a few weeks earlier at his 80th birthday party, Jack stated hope was for 5 more years, so that he could see our older grandson graduate college, our younger one, high school. These 5 years were about to be cramped into 4 months.

And now, a year later, I was intuiting, suffering again as Jack had on that date. Is this to be my fate?

Jack had what many have said was a “good death.” He died in hospice in our home, surrounded by his wife, children, and grandsons. Our two “boys” (14 and 17) played violin, sang opera and Sinatra songs. I played Cole Porter and Mozart recordings and read poetry to him. We each told him of our love, gratitude, and support for him on his final journey. When this most articulate of men could no longer utter but a few phrases, then none, we could do nothing but offer him our balms of words, music and Dilaudid. Jack swelled up like a tick when the cancer invaded his liver, quietly moaned when we bathed and changed him; we could tell he was trying to spare our feelings, just as we were trying to spare his.

I have learned/decided that we are born in a handful of different ways, but we each die differently and in thousands of different ways. Permutations of death, that slippery lethal weapon, are hard to predict, hard to track. Perhaps it is because we have so many medical means to extend life, that we resist, don’t know when to shout “Uncle.”

Jack and I had read Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” and throughout the various cancer treatments we kept asking ourselves: is this too much, too little, just right? We tried not to be greedy or wasteful of medical interventions, despite the fact it cost us little, financially. Jack wanted to live longer, but only if he could enjoy life, not just survive.

When he chose hospice, he died in less than a week, despite predictions that he would live at least another two weeks, if not a month. He made up his mind to go as quickly as he could, and we each verbally gave him permission to do so.

Upon his death I precipitously emerged a widow, joining a sea of (apparently) solitary, grieving figures. It was as if I had passed through a glass barrier, never to return to the ‘ourness’ of 56 years of marriage, 60 years of friendship and deep love. While I have been fortunate to have tremendous outreach from friends and family, offers of companionship and support, at night I was alone in our beautiful home, in our beautiful Japanese garden, with no one to discuss our readings, thoughts, writings, hopes. Moreover, we counseled each other if we thought the other were out of line in words or behavior. Where would I find such a loyal coach now? 

I kept up with my reading, writing, board work, walks and planned some short trips. Many people commented how good I looked and how well I was doing. I thanked them. What were they really thinking? When some would also ask me, a bit timidly (I intuit), how I am doing, I reply that I’m doing well considering the circumstances. But that this condition “totally sucks.” Many I counsel to treasure their time with their partner, because when it’s over, it’s totally over. Am I giving TMI? Who will tell me?

On my daily walks, when I pass a certain cluster of homes, I often “hologram” Jack in his green and white check shirt, carrying the cat in a backpack while I sing songs to the cat. (The remembered event, captured on our Aura frame, occurred on a warm election day, November 2020.) Jack turns around and gives me a wry smile, a “I can’t believe I’m doing this nonsense” look, with his usual good humor.

Before he died, I told Jack I wanted him to haunt me in my dreams, both day and night. I’ve only had one dream of him, at least that I remember: we are driving a Jeep down a parking ramp, side by side, trying to duck ceiling protrusions. I can’t see Jack (who is driving), but we are talking. That’s it. I was so happy for this brief connection…yet to be repeated.

Most helpful have been the widows and widowers, that sea of unfortunates whom I’ve reluctantly joined, who have reached out to me with notes, calls, books, brief or extended conversations. It’s as if I’ve unwillingly joined Groucho Marx’ club (any club that wanted him, he wouldn’t want to join). But I now recognize that we bereaved ARE different. Each must create a totally new life. While I can learn from them I must, in my own way, in my own time, do the same, while recognizing that my life, too, is finite.

I also shamedly admit that all the times I offered comfort to newly minted spouses of deceased, those attempts fell way short. I really had had no idea how wrenching it is/was to be thrown into an alternative universe, not of one’s own choice or choosing.

Moreover, losing “couple” status, I am more aware of my home-safety needs (lights, cameras, alarms) with my solo home occupancy; I also felt unusually vulnerable when I got sick after Christmas (norovirus from a relative!). And, of course, I am more aware of my own mortality, having little idea of how long I may live, and/or live well. The optimism derived from a family history of long-livers is tempered by its history of strokes, my early-stage breast cancer over five years ago, and serious damage to my body from a high-impact collision 18 years ago. All bets are off.

With determination to move quickly, but not too precipitously, I strip possessions, buy as little as needed, have signed up for a continuous care facility where, in 2-7 years I can move and enjoy a spacious apartment (but not have to panic if I get sick and need more care), take trips, accept well-paced invitations to concerts and events. I have had a wonderful life, so there is nothing I must do, or still long to do. And of course, my priority is to spend as much time with my family, while not burdening them—we are all still fragile and trying to adjust to the new normal, each on our own timeline.

When he was dying but still lucid, and knowing that Jack didn’t believe in heaven, we asked him where we would meet again. Jack decided that we’d meet on a rooftop terrace in Rome where we’d all drink limoncello on the rocks. (Ten years ago, our family had done so during a very hot June in the Eternal City.) We applauded that idea, drank limoncello cordials around Jack’s body when he died in his beloved library, and often eat limoncello cookies baked by a thoughtful neighbor. We toast Jack and his good and generous life.

My girlfriend, Carol, a longtime friend, and sister widow, with whom Jack and I had traveled several times (often with her late husband), surprised me in November when she suggested we go to Rome late January for a week—tagging onto a board meeting in NYC. We had a great time together in Rome, walking 5 miles a day, having half day private tours 5 with our favorite guide, Liz, marveling at the 55 degrees and sunny weather. Each night (eschewing the Romans’ 8pm dinnertime) we sipped local wine and ate snacks in our albergo’s lounge where we could discuss the day’s events and takeaways. We didn’t shy away from talking about travels and times with our husbands.

It was all part of what I call “getting back on the horse,” a process that started, of course, with Jack’s death. This process comprises old and new activities I’ve cheerfully embraced, others that I’ve been forced to endure and master.

When Carol and I were assigned our rooms in our beloved Roman hotel near the Pantheon, I traded my small room for a larger one with a separate sitting area and roof terrace. One sunny afternoon, Carol and I poured cups of sparking lemon water (too early in the day for hard liquor), set up the 3 chairs on my room’s rooftop deck and toasted Jack and our many wonderful times together, in Rome and around the world. Jack didn’t send a ‘sign’ that he was there, nor at any time during the trip. Yes, when it’s over, it’s truly over.

I’m also growing more content with my belief that with the support of my sister/fellow-widows and widowers, we can help each other—through example, words or silent support. Our precious coterie must and will figure out our reshaped lives one at a time and together…at least in ways better than if we each did it alone.