The Longest Ride

A truth emerges in any long marriage, and the truth is this: Our spouses sometimes know us better than we even know ourselves.

[Written on back of photograph of Ruth and Daniel]

"Ruth LevinsonThird grade teacher.She believes in me and I can be anything I want when I grow up.I can even change the world."

"My plea to you is this: despite your sadness, do not forget how happy you have made me; do not forget that I loved a man who loved me in return, and this was the greatest gift I could ever hope to receive."

"'If there is a heaven, we will find each other again, for there is no heaven without you.'"

As much as I love her, I admit that she has always remained somewhat of an enigma to me...I liked this about her. I liked the mystery she added to my life. I liked the occasional silence between us, for ours was a comfortable silence. It was a passionate silence, one that had its roots in comfort and desire.

My marriage brought great happiness into my life, but lately there's been nothing but sadness. I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can't be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the tradeoff is fair. A man should die as he had lived, I think; in his final moments, he should be surrounded and comforted by those he's always loved.

I was not meant to be alone. I am not good at it. The years since Ruth's passing have ticked by with the kind of desparate silence known only to the elderly. It is a silence underscored by loneliness and the knowledge that the good years are already in the past, coupled with the complications of old age itself.The body is not meant to survive nearly a century. I speak from experience when I say this...

While she was exceptional, I was average, a man whose major accomplishment in life was to love her without reservation, and that would never change.

In this world, after all, I've become more or less invisible...I've become what the young are afraid of becoming, just another member of the nameless elderly, an old and broken man with nothing left to offer to this world.My days are inconsequential, comprising simple moments and even simpler pleasures. I eat and sleep and think of Ruth; I wander the house and stare the the paintings, and in the mornings, I feed the pigeons that gather in my backyard.