In Media and Memory

December before last I was talking to a friend in the locker-room of the Y. Turned out both our wives had a form of slow-growing cancer, and both of them were scheduled for update evaluations with their respective doctors. Two weeks later he told me his wife got a great report -- the new medical approach they were taking seemed to be working wonderfully, almost miraculously.

My wife was referred for further testing. Which of course sounded ominous.

A few weeks later my friend told me something shocking. It appeared that his wife's data had been somehow misinterpreted -- her cancer was not only back but growing aggressively. They were told to prepare for the worst, that palliative care was all that remained. He of course got a second opinion, even though his doctor, an old family friend, was one of the best in the area. The second opinion was the same. Bad, terrible news.

Meanwhile my wife got her final results back. Her cancer was and is almost totally in remission. It's one of those forms that grows so slowly that odds are she will die of something else. Great news.

Early this last December I saw my friend at the gym. He'd been there only sporadically over the past year, spending much time simply caring for his wife (we are both officially retired). We'd talked briefly in those sporadic visits, but in December he said he was doing okay. I asked about his wife. He said, in a flat sad tone, "Oh, I thought I told you. She passed away two weeks ago." I offered my sympathies. He accepted and asked how my wife was. I said, feeling awkward, that she was fine. He said "Glad to hear it." He took my email address so he could me the obituary.

I got and read it over breakfast the next morning. She sounded like a fine woman, though of course obituaries are almost always black-or-white, making good people sound perfect and bad people sound perfectly evil. Truth is even the best of us have flaws and foibles, but, on balance, and on his report, hers was a life well-lived.

I looked up and across the table at my wife. She is a fine woman, in a life still living. I realized how lucky I am to have her here alive, flaws, foibles and all, instead of having her memorialized, polished, and honed, in media and memory.