In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss(7)
September 2005, Durham, Connecticut
How We Met
Brian and I fell in love the way some middle-aged people in unhappy partnerships and in small towns do: liberal Democrats in a Republican town, ethnic types in a town full of Northern Europeans, opinionated loudmouths, and people who were willing to man the Durham Democrats Hot Dog Stand (hot dogs and cider) every September at the fair. I overlooked his bad haircut and aviator glasses. I’m sure he had to overlook my lack of interest in sports and my impatience (Brian could talk about a plastic gazebo or additional parking at the library for hours). We had been walking together, since our partners were not walkers, and talking together in public, at our local Democrats breakfast club, and then, suddenly, talking in private. He said, I was a three-sport captain in high school, and I laughed. He said, It would have been four sports but you can’t do lacrosse and baseball. Is that right, I said, and he took my hand. He said, What’s your family like? I said, Jews from New York. You? He said, Well, we’re a football family. We have three Heisman trophies in my family. I said, What’s a Heisman, and he kissed me. I kissed him back and, sensibly, we avoided each other for the next year. After a year, and some martinis in New Haven at the end of the day, he asked me to take a walk with him.
He said, I’m not stupid. I know how this will end. You’ll tell me we should not do this to the people we love, or I’ll tell you, and we will go back to our lives, where we should be. And I will never get over this. Or, we blow up our lives and be together.
I just want to say this, he said, before we walk back to our cars. I know who you could be with. Someone rich, someone fancy, some guy your sister finds for you. But I know who you should be with. You should be with a guy who doesn’t mind that you’re smarter than he is, who doesn’t mind that most of the time, you’ll be the main event. You need to be with a guy who supports how hard you work and who’ll bring you a cup of coffee late at night. I don’t know if I can be that guy, he said, tears in his eyes, but I’d like a shot.
We married.
Monday Evening Continued, January 27, 2020, Zurich
As I understand it, Dr. G. is both our guide through the process and a possible speed bump. Brian’s clear on everything except the day and date, and I make the decision that the day and the date cannot be important because drilling him on it frightens us and wears us out. The friend-of-a-friend who’d brought her father with brain cancer to Dignitas told me that it was very important that Brian open the hotel room door, showing that he’s in charge of the process. I tell Brian this and he nods but I can tell he’s not going to jump up at the first knock. Brian is not someone who rushes (period) to host, at any gathering we’ve ever had. He loves being the guest and he makes up for it by doing a ton of dishes after. I don’t know how to make sure he answers the door or even if it’s important. I just keep saying: The doctor’s gonna knock on our hotel room door. (I’m also worried about etiquette. Will the doctor expect a cup of tea? Does he look like the Grim Reaper? No and no.)
The doctor does knock on the door and I almost scream.
Brian strolls over to the door and is his most amiable and pleasant, Brian self. (We used to say that Brian could talk to anyone. He could make small talk with a stump and, in the end, that stump would be hugging Brian goodbye, thanking him for a great evening, and inviting us all to the next stump get-together.)
Dr. G. is a small man with large, lovely, mournful eyes. We all shake hands and Brian and Dr. G. sit across from each other. I ask Dr. G. if I can stay for the conversation and he looks surprised. He says, gently, that of course I should stay, as this all concerns me, as well. I begin crying and both men look at me kindly. I pour myself a glass of water. Dr. G. (“Moishe,” he says. That’s my father’s name, and I feel lightly blessed somehow and I know that I have lost my mind) asks about our flight. He mentions, complaining lightly, just en passant, in what I can only describe as the Jewish fashion of complaining while assuring us, at the beginning and end of each sentence, that he is certainly not complaining, that he had to come so late at night because he was at a concert in the city and it was most convenient, coming after the concert, because he lives by the lake and doesn’t come into town every day but since we chose to stay in the Old Town, he had to make a special trip just to see us—not that he’s complaining. I beg him to take a glass of water and he does, probably so I’ll stop crying. He opens a folder and says to Brian, After I read your application, I knew I would see you, but I didn’t think it would be this soon. Brian says, It’s not a big window. I mean, no one knows how long they have, how much time they have, to make this choice. Dr. G. looks like he might argue but instead he says, You’re absolutely right.
He says that he began helping Dignitas (he is an ophthalmologist) after his father’s death from Alzheimer’s, which was long and painful, in every way. He says that Dignitas uses eight doctors and they are all pretty busy. I worry that he will mention again how much extra time it takes to schlep from the lake into the city, but he doesn’t. He says to Brian, I will ask you several times, many times, if you are sure that this is what you wish to do and I want you to understand that at any time, at any time between now and the final act, you are free to change your mind and not do this. I hope you will not do this, he says softly, and Brian nods. So, Dr. G. says, Are you sure that you wish to end your life on Thursday? Brian says that he is sure. I start crying again and, thank God, both men ignore me again. Dr. G. smiles and nods.