Hey, that's no way to say goodbye

I was out of phone reach last weekend attending a wedding in Maine. But, frustratingly enough, every now and then my phone would alert me that I had voice mails from Mrs. B. As three voicemails piled up in one day I thought: What is the deal, did someone die or something?

Well, sadly, that turned out to be true.

I've known Indian J since the second day I started attending school in Madison in 1985. By coincidence we sat next to each other at an orientation session, which was quickly followed by beers at the lakefront student union. At that time he was extracting himself from the wreckage of a premature marriage that had produced two toddler boys. Through the college years we weren't consistent running pardners, but our friend circles intertwined and we shared a couple girlfriends (though not at the same time- well, almost once) and were even roommates during senior year.

After I had left Madison for frontiers beyond what a liberal midwestern college town could offer, Indian J and I kept in touch. He remained in Madison and I periodically returned to visit- which included a couple month couch-surfing stint one summer- and eventually we found our life partners.

Indian J had found F., a native of Die, France who taught school. I didn't see them much, but understood something of the dynamic where she wanted to start a family and Indian J was reluctant: he felt burned by his first experience and he didn't know if he could devote himself to the project again. But divine intervention occurred and they decided to bring forth Little M into the world in '01 and were wed in '02. I watched as he joyously danced with his little daughter at the barnyard reception.

I'm a little hazy on the chronology, but F. was diagnosed with cancer around '03. She doggedly pursued treatment and was able to continue with a somewhat normal life for some time. But her health began to decline over the last couple years. By last fall she was spending some time in a wheelchair and was incapable of working. I saw her again several weeks ago and she was largely bound to a bed, but she could still hold a conversation. She wanted to hear about my world, and I kept my questions about her to a minimum. I had already sat with Indian J and asked how he was doing. "It sucks watching your wife die." I didn't need to ask her to explain how she was doing.

Shortly after my visit, her condition began to rapidly deteriorate. She needed professional help and was moved to hospice, where she lasted another week.

In the spectrum of human tragedies, individual deaths are the equivalent of a calendar year in geologic time. They don't really register as a blip when measured as a part of the whole. But as we live through our lives, we don't have the luxury of that larger perspective. The most minute events are often the most painful and medicine has yet to concoct ways to heal the wounds that need the most immediate attention.

I use the word "tragedy" because I witnessed Indian J, having reached for the brass ring of domestic felicity long after cynicism and resignation from a failed first marriage should have kept him on the sidelines, find that his grasp could not hold on as F.'s body failed her.

Indian J and Little Miss M will continue on: she to second grade and he back to his high school counseling duties. From my outside vantage point I can't escape seeing his life as a story flavored by the cruellest of ironies. It is a story of a runner who stumbled once, then rose to race again, only to find that the location of the finish line had changed.