My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me

by Jason B. Rosenthal

Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts.

  —The Head and the Heart

  It was July 26, 2017, when I got the call that my dad, Arnie, had passed away.

  It wasn’t a complete shock. Throughout my adult life my relationship with him was mostly as his caretaker; he suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many, many years and was fortunate enough to spend his last years in an assisted living facility. Still, it was brutal watching this once vibrant and cool man, with more than his share of hair and girlfriends, in a long decline. Visiting him was a chore. He was able to give so little emotionally, and his inclination was to complain. About anything and everything. What finally took Dad’s life was dysphagia, a severely compromised ability to swallow, apparently not uncommon as Parkinson’s disease progresses.

  My experience of losing my dad was a bit conflicted. On one hand, just a few months after losing Amy, it was painful to be plunged headfirst back into grief. Just as I thought I was going in a better direction, I had to confront feelings of loss all over again. On the other hand, though, to be completely honest, I was at peace with his passing. He’d been living a very, very difficult life, and he’d never seemed happy. His physical limitations had become so extreme that it was impossible for him to enjoy the simple pleasures of everyday life—going to a diner for a chocolate phosphate, for example, or his weekly outings with his brother Howard for a hot dog.

  I was relieved for him that he was free of a body and mind that were making him so miserable. I was relieved for me that I’d been freed from the burden of continuing to be his caretaker; after the long time I’d spent caring for Amy, simply put, I was exhausted. But as with grief in general, the impact of losing my father wove its way in and out of my consciousness and made the emotional process that much more difficult to navigate.

  In the end, my father’s death carried an emotional toll all its own—albeit not one that I could have fully predicted. While I obviously grieved for my father, his death made me feel Amy’s absence even more acutely. Amy had always been there for me when it came to him—or to life in general, for that matter—and this was the first loss I’d suffered since her passing. In the aftermath of my father’s death, I was reminded of how immediately Amy and I understood our respective struggles and the unspoken agreement between us that whatever those struggles were, we’d get through them together.

  Not many people understood my challenges with my father in the same way Amy did, without my ever having to explain it to her, or even say a word about it unless I just needed to. The complexities of my relationship with him were not lost on her. She was there when I returned from a visit with him and had to unwind by venting to her.

  “Did he ask you one question about you?” she’d ask, even though she already knew the answer. I was usually a sounding board for all of the things Arnie found to complain about. Amy would listen to me repeat his list of things that were wrong in his life: the institutional food, his lack of training to use a computer so he could finish his book, the allegedly rough way he was handled by the staff, and on and on.

  Amy and I would put things in perspective together. We would remind Dad that he was beyond fortunate to live where he did at no cost to himself; that his sons were there financially if he needed anything; that his kids schlepped him to countless doctors’ visits; that his brother was there religiously to take him out for his regular hot-dog excursions; and that he had incredible grandkids with whom he could develop relationships. Amy had her own unique way of bringing me back to reality after a visit with him, of making me feel like a good son, and of helping me simply get used to the fact that I would not get anything in return from this complex relationship.

  Now suddenly I had to confront this maze of emotions on my own, without Amy to lean on. It was humbling to realize how empty I still felt, even after months of what I’d told myself was progress. Above all else, though, it was just incredibly sad.

  Perhaps nothing crystallized my fraught emotions more than sitting down to prepare my remarks for my dad’s funeral. As I tried to think of the right words, I was overcome with a feeling of profound certainty—Amy would have known what to say. But not just that, she would have helped me figure out what I wanted to say. Instead, I had to figure it out on my own. And just that fact—that I’d lost my sounding board, my friend who was there to help me deal with moments precisely like this—left me at a loss for words, not just about my father, but about everything.

  Thankfully, just when I’d almost given up on finding much of anything to talk about but my struggles with Dad, my high school prom date texted me out of the blue and shared some wonderful memories of him, even though their encounter had been brief. As with many challenges I would come to face, I started to think about him from a place of being grateful for what he stood for in my life. My dad was, after all, a very accomplished artist, a jazz drummer, and a historian, and he had a wealth of idiosyncrasies, including his love of Fanta grape soda, chocolate phosphates, and hot-dog gum. In the end, I was able to eulogize him in a way that showed respect for the man he’d been in my life.

  As Arnie’s death threw me back into my grief for Amy, something unexpected happened, purely by chance, that went a long way to helping me focus on my blank space: Miles, who had recently graduated from college in Atlanta, came home to Chicago and moved back in with me.

  Now this wasn’t anyone’s “idea,” it just sort of happened in the way that lots of kids move home after college graduation. Miles had his own plans for his future, and home seemed like a good place to put things in motion. The timing could not have been more perfect.

  Of course neither of us knew at the outset what it would be like living together without Amy, but as it turned out, the match was great. Each of us provided something for the other at that unspeakably difficult time. For me, the sight of my middle child emerging from his childhood bedroom felt so comforting, a sense of normalcy in a period when nothing felt normal. Oh, there’s Miles coming out of his red room, right where he belongs.

  It became clear early on that we were entering a new phase of our relationship, though. My days of fathering a young boy were over. Sure, I had a lot of anxiety about single parenting. Those concerns frequently crept in, but mostly our relationship was redefining itself. I soon began a new life as a single person, and Miles was right there with a window into my new life. Sometimes that would mean I was out late. Other times it meant a traditional “Dad dinner,” something I knew Miles deeply appreciated.

  But it was the in-between moments that brought us that much closer. Whether that came in the form of pausing in the morning before work for a good conversation about an article or current events, or diving deep into exchanging thoughts about a podcast we’d heard, I saw with such clarity that this was not just my son and my new roommate but a grown-up man processing his own grief.

  We continued our tradition of cooking meals together and trying out new restaurants. We frequented neighborhood joints. We talked about books, and he introduced me to some great nonfiction I would never have known about without him. We explored the new territory of family gatherings and social events together without Amy and learned to enjoy them, and we traveled to a wedding as a team. Having Miles in my life in this intimate way took some of the sting out of the loss I’d been struggling with.

  The fact that this happened after my father’s death, after I’d felt that profound sense of Amy’s absence all over again, was not lost on me. My father’s death had been a step back for me, and having a new support in place made a huge difference. There were times when I felt so sad and vulnerable to my darkest possible emotions, and then Miles would be there. Likewise, there were other times when I saw Miles and felt so incredibly grateful that I could still look forward to being a father to three outstanding human beings. Just being near him helped renew my sense of purpose; for the first time in months, I found myself living not just day to day but with intention.

  Whatever I did with my blank space, whatever my plan would be, my kids would be my bedrock
. The combination of Arnie’s death and living with Miles helped me realize just how much of my future needed to be spent appreciating what I had, not dwelling on what I’d lost. My father had given up so much by not being a more active part of my life. And now, unlike my dad, I’d had the privilege of being with my wife, raising our three amazing kids together, knowing them inside and out, watching them grow into extraordinary young adults, sharing everything from adventures all over the world to boring chores and homework. I wonder if Arnie ever thought about those lost moments with Michel and me.

  In a leap of courage, I asked Miles to step in here for a moment and write whatever he wanted to say about the impact of this past couple of years on him. I didn’t have to tell him to be honest. I knew he would. But I wasn’t prepared for this:

  There are too many important memories to capture in a single spouting of memories, too many defining moments that are embedded and tethered together in my family’s collective consciousness. In the midst of the most defining, tragic period of our lives, joy found its subtle way to emerge. In late February of 2017, my family and I were tending to my mother as she lived out her final hospice days in the comfort of our home, my childhood nest. The seclusion we had was important, away from the semi-publicity and chaos of a hospital, we were confined to our space of preeminent choice in any circumstance; we were close to each other and to our matriarch, the one who was somehow chosen to deal with the most acute and painful of burdens, the emperor of all maladies. During this time, I was working to finish my spring and final semester of college. This also entailed searching for a postgraduation job for the period after this terrible personal event would be reduced to memories.

  Within the last few weeks of my mom’s life, I received an acceptance call from what would be my future employer—this onerous task was over. What was worth some mild celebration was that the job would be in Chicago, and that unequivocally meant moving back in to live and be with my dad. My mom was too sick to feel excited, but I was elated to tell Dad. Strangely and obviously, I remember the joy I felt during that afternoon when sharing the news; it was enough to temporarily drown out, or really dampen, the pain and terror of the imminence of my mom’s death. Shortly after this episode, we reached the apotheosis of the dark of the night, and my mother would finally leave this world, and us. There was no way back. However much gloom and fog made it difficult to see, there was a way forward. For me, 80% of that was called Dad.

  At work, it was clear early on that I would have to put double the effort in in order to release myself of the pull towards, and being consumed by, thoughts of my mom, while also learning the plethora of new things that a first job requires. There was a considerable amount of time throughout the hospice stage where I thought that when it all became the past, it would be far more manageable than living with only the memories. I would come to no longer believe in the truth of this ideal; the density of it all was just too great. What offered some incredible recompense, however, was merely being in my dad’s presence and even more so the graciousness and generosity he showed and gave me without ever asking for anything in return. Upon walking through the revolving door of my office building and into the evening, hearing the cacophony of downtown Chicago noises, I most looked forward to getting off the “L” and re-entering my old home where my dad would often be waiting for me. If I was particularly lucky, I’d open that mighty wooden front-door and step into a house filled with the intoxicating scents of garlic, butter, and rosemary as he concocted a small masterpiece. While I was in my childhood home, it was also blatantly obvious how different everything truly was. At our home, there was always something close enough to bite and remind me of the presence that was there but wasn’t.

  My dad spent a lot of time focused on learning about the ways that individuals and cultures respond to grief, consuming books on the subject from as wide an array of authors as possible; they would pile high in the corner of his room, on his nightstand, and on the dining room table he gradually transformed into a second office. In recent years, my dad has provided the world the opportunity to hear his words and consume this knowledge and the profundity of both his ideas and messages, and the responses they have been strong—people are moved, and they are thankful. Nothing about my dad has fundamentally changed since my mom’s death and throughout our 700-or-so days of cohabitation. He is still gentle and kind, strong of mind and body, generous and shrewd, creative, pensive and composed, and mostly, for me and my siblings, the embodiment of a father in its best sense. Many seek to learn from him, and many will continue to.

  I have been lucky enough to be in such close proximity to him as to witness and receive the enactment of the aforementioned qualities, and I will always remember it as a time filled with immense love and appreciation. I could have chosen to break from my family, my city and my home in order to create a new life away from the terrors of the past, but it was only through returning home and living alongside that great man that I was able to feel connected to and nurtured by the part of him that I came to understand truly embodied my parents and my mother. I have found nothing in my brief sojourn on Earth that imbues me with as much a sense of completeness as being with my father. I owe him more than I could ever hope to repay, but it’s a testament to the man he is that he may very well say the same exact thing about me.

  Of all the profound lessons that living with Miles afforded me, perhaps the most powerful was that it lessened the fears that had been plaguing me since even before Amy’s death about my ability to parent my kids on my own. Yes, a mother/child relationship is unique and irreplaceable. But so is a father/child relationship, if you give it the best you’ve got and don’t leave the “emotional intimacy” part to the mom because you assume women are better at it.

  Living with Miles in such proximity reinforced something that I’d known theoretically but hadn’t been able to truly experience since Amy’s death: parenting on my own was indeed different, but I was up for the challenge. Miles and I became closer than ever, and the best part was that it wasn’t just me watching him grow anymore. He started to watch me grow as well. As we wandered through the grief of losing Amy together, we held each other up every step of the way as no one else could have, giving each other plenty of support and freedom to process the new lives stretching out ahead of us, one blank space at a time.

  14

  The Heal Jason Tour

  God has given us music so that above all it can lead us upwards. Music unites all qualities: it can exalt us, divert us, cheer us up, or break the hardest of hearts with the softest of its melancholy tones. But its principal task is to lead our thoughts to higher things, to elevate, even to make us tremble. . . . The musical art often speaks in sounds more penetrating than the words of poetry, and takes hold of the most hidden crevices of the heart. . . . Song elevates our being and leads us to the good and the true.

  —Friedrich Nietzsche

  While living with Miles afforded me a stability I never could have imagined, I was still prone to my share of rough patches, still trying to reconnect with that guy I’d always been, that guy who felt happy, curious, and enthusiastic about life.

  One of the most challenging aspects of this time in my life was my chosen career as a lawyer. Over the years, Amy and I had talked so often about my finding a bit more meaning, even joy, in my professional life. I knew that trying to emulate Amy’s level of utter joy and commitment to her work, though she never considered what she did for a living as “work” in the technical sense, was impossible. At the same time, I was forced to think about the ultimate pivot. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a profound event like the one I was faced with to really deeply consider what purpose work has in this life. That certainly was the case for me.

  I’d been self-employed ever since the kids were little, which provided me the freedom to be the family man I wanted to be and was. However, this moment in time caused me to really reflect on the day-to-day insignificance of what I had been doing. Did I want to haggle with insurance
adjusters? Hell, no. Was financial comfort all that was left of being a solo practitioner? Administrative obligations overwhelmed the actual practice of law. This was not a path that I wanted to continue on for long. My entire life’s focus had changed, and my law career compounded my lack of clarity instead of bringing things into focus.

  My presence at my law office diminished quickly. As I began to take better care of myself, I did not beat myself up if I went to yoga in the morning instead of rushing to work. If I was in the throes of a good book, I might keep reading for a bit before feeling that draw, that need to be in the office at a certain time, that plagued me most of my adult life. Even to this day, I am unable to completely shut my doors at the firm, still dealing with the idea of closing off a part of my identity. But as the days go on and I continue to focus on what is meaningful in my life, the practice of law, such as it is, has moved to the bottom rung of the ladder. Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, music, family, and friends have guided me to think about new ways to contribute in this life. It is a work in progress.

  And in many ways, having Miles around reinforced the need to start doing new things even more. Because his presence was such a welcome change, it helped me think about what could happen if I began to make other changes. I could see clearly now, for the first time in months, that I was in serious need of a place where I could figure out how to be myself again.

  Not surprisingly, my thoughts drifted back to places Amy and I had traveled, in particular on our honeymoon. California and Colorado. Big Sur, and the mountains. We’d loved it there. Majestic, exhilarating, brand-new air with every breath, life everywhere. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like the perfect place to rejuvenate. Though to some it might seem difficult to revisit a place so integral to my life with Amy, I wasn’t worried about going there by myself and feeling her presence all around me. That was already happening no matter where I was, so I might as well let it happen in a couple of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.