This is a companion piece to, although in no way a refutation of, Mary T. Kelly's, "Why are the Gores divorcing?" I don't know why the Gores are divorcing. I wish them well.

Coincidentally, and ironically, I spent the afternoon with a friend and parishioner who lost her husband to a terrible disease. She and their children and grandchildren had done a wonderful job of filling his last days with love and celebration, and today, he died in his sleep. 

They have been, in many ways, community activists. Generous with their time  and energy and their material resources, they are responsible for much that is good in this place. Their inside of their house, which he built, is a perfect collage of all that they loved: family, friends, church, volunteer work, travel, books, music, art.

Whenever I was in their presence, I could feel the love they had for one another. I never saw annoyance, resentment, resignation, although I'm sure they felt all those, occasionally. I saw real life, with its disappointments and disagreements, but I never saw anything that made me think they regretted for an instant that they'd married young and stayed married for 40-some years.

You could say they were lucky, except that they weren't, really. He was orphaned young, raised in a home without love, and scrabbled hard to make his way in the world. They lost a child to SIDS. He survived one debilitating disease and spent his last two decades on a transplant list, but another disease struck. For the past few months, I've watched him, a man who was vital and energetic at Christmastime, come to church first with a walker and then in an electric chair, and then ask that communion come to him. I watched, these past few days, as his body struggled to remember to breathe, and as he conveyed, with great dignity, his refusal of any mechanical means of respiratory support, to the many people who tried to change his mind. He suffered, but he was spared a horrible death, blessed by God, a good hospice nurse, and a brave, caring partner. 

And she, the "luckier" one, watched him die. Now she must go on without him, and today I saw both how difficult that will be for her and how strong she is. She has few regrets, except for this big one: Their life together is over.

We stood today beside the hospital bed in their bedroom, and I watched as her warm fingers stroked his waxy, cooling hands. We stood there for a long time, hours. When the funeral director came to do his job, I moved to the doorway to make sure she had all the time she needed.

I heard what she said when she bent down to say goodbye.

"We never gave up on each other, did we?" 

That's what they meant, when they made those promises so long ago, and while others have very good reasons for making different choices, that these two did not give up on each other during hard, hard times is an accomplishment to be honored and emulated.