Over the past six months I have had a lot of time to look at my wife—as she received chemotherapy, while she waited to see the doctor, as she lay in the hospital after the double mastectomy and as she sat, for hours in front of the television, too sick and tired to do anything else.
My conclusion from studying her for all that time is that she has not changed one bit since the day we were married forty-four years ago.
Her blue eyes still sparkle when she is happy; they still roll in exasperation when she has to put up with stupid people; they narrow when she is angry; and they fill with tears when she’s in pain.
On our wedding day she had dark thick hair. I still see it even though most people see a silvery halo of wispy silver strands.
I love to watch her talk to the doctors and nurses. She still uses her hands to provide exclamation points to the words coming from her mouth. She always bounces in her seat when she gets to a particularly important part of her story.
And, to be honest, she still has that withering, almost cruel, tone to her voice when she thinks I’m not catching on to what she’s saying fast enough. Even that is kind of exciting, in a weird way.
When I massage her feet they feel exactly the same as they did the first year we were married. It’s the same hand I hold as we lie in bed, side by side in the dark, each vowing we will never go away.