We were married forty-four years after dating for two. Work, children, home, church were our primary interests. Going out with the boys or the girls simply didn’t fit into our lifestyles; we wanted to come home to each other after a long day at the office.
For a brief time we worked as partners in the real estate business and discovered that for us, it was good. He helped investors while I stayed with new home buyers. Spending all day together and going home together didn’t get old. Had it not been for an 18-wheeler crushing my car and breaking a kneecap it could have been a long career for us as a team.
The children knew that asking one and going to the other if they didn’t like the first answer got them nowhere. We were in sync in that department, too. When our daughter was born with Down’s syndrome, there was no finger pointing. Instead, as we had handled all the trials of marriage, we held each other closer, crying together, determining to let her have the fullest life possible, and holding her older brother closer without smothering him. Jaimie grew up amazingly independent; David became a wonderful man who urged his buddies to teach disabled kids how to fish in their spare time.
We moved from apartment to apartment to our first tiny house to a house big enough for us and a live-in housekeeper we really couldn’t afford. I had to work and had no wish to pull Jaimie out of her home every day to a babysitter.
Pets, which Bruce swore he didn’t like, came into our house and stayed over the years. When our housekeeper died and her daughter asked Bruce to take her cat, he didn’t hesitate. He had a heart of pure mush he tried to hide.
Before he retired, Bruce wanted Jaimie and me to move to Florida and our retirement home. He knew I had my doubts about living there. We moved, got the house ready only to find out he wouldn’t be joining us. His early out had been denied; there was no one to take over his position. For three years he traveled once a month to see us.
During that time yet another pet joined our home. A lovely Scottish terrier, appropriately named Mr. Scotty, took over the house and our hearts. The housekeeper’s cat was not amused, but accepted the pup. The moment the dog saw Bruce and Bruce saw him, it was love for both of them. I had a lump in my throat when I saw the tears in Bruce’s eyes as he said, “No other pet ever chose me. He’s really my dog.” That dog worshiped Bruce to the point of dying soon after his master passed away. Their ashes were put into a small dome forming a reef in my husband’s beloved Gulf of Mexico.
When he moved to Florida, at long last, Bru started a boat dealership. He arrived back from the first boat show stricken with fear. “I didn’t sell even one.”
I told him to stop pushing to sell; to act as though selling would be nice, but not necessary for his life to continue. With his previous success in selling real estate part time, I knew he had to treat boats as nothing more than another sales medium. The next show he sold two boats. The business lasted a year and a half before the manufacturer sold us and every other dealer on the West Coast out by giving that territory to a financial backer. That was a fortunate move as it turned out.
Bruce had been getting so tired he could barely walk across our living room. He agreed to see a doctor only to be hospitalized. He returned home after five heart bypasses. Within a week, his body wracked with infection, an ambulance rushed him back to the hospital. Two months later he came home with an open chest because his body refused to heal with the wound stitched up. I cleaned the wound three times a day, rinsed it out and repacked it with gauze. For the first time in two months he smiled, delighted to be home again. Recovery took a few months and he never fully regained all his strength.
On June 6, 2009, Bruce had a massive stroke. Understanding his doctor to say he could get more medical help in Pennsylvania, we moved from his beloved Florida to Pennsylvania within two weeks. He went by ambulance. For three years, I had the honor of caring for a man who would not give up. He never grew morose. His smile still lit up the room when he saw me. My heart still gave a leap of joy when I saw him. The illness was a bump in the road; our honeymoon continued.
On April 25, 2012 Bruce gave in to multiple complications. I kissed him a final good-bye. Not with a great noise, but with a sigh from my husband’s lips our life together ended. For forty-four years my life consisted of being half of a married couple. A new beginning stretched before me – a beginning I did not want and was not ready to face. On the day my husband died, a widow was born. Perhaps the future would hold something wonderful. For the moment, however, widowhood presented a dark time of struggle to reach the light.
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