On My Own

by Diane Rehm

  Then, with list in hand and David seated at the piano, the very piano John had given me so many years ago, we began discussing John’s favorite hymns, relishing the beauty and memory of each one. Together, we narrowed the list down to about sixteen. David proceeded to play parts of each of them for me, and, as we sang together, the two of us agreed on those we felt could easily be sung by a congregation not wholly familiar with the hymnal.

  Our friend David Dixon, Jane Dixon’s widower, reminded us that Reverend Jim Holmes had come to know John when John began attending services of Holy Communion during the week. Jim came to my apartment a few days before the service and sat with David and me, going over aspects of John’s life and outlook, which he then incorporated into his moving homily.

  Hundreds of people attended the service. The flowers at the altar were utterly beautiful—John had often said he wanted no more “things” in life, just flowers. So many good friends and relatives and colleagues came to be with us, as well as several people I barely knew, whose lives had been touched by him.

  As I heard people’s comments that day about what John had meant to them and how his example had influenced them, I found myself wondering why we wait to say such important words to people we genuinely care for and admire. Why are we so reluctant to express our feelings of admiration and the importance our relationships play in our lives? Why do we wait until it’s too late, when only survivors can hear those lovely words?

  I admit that I, too, have failed on more occasions than I wish to remember to tell a friend how much she or he means to me. But for the past few years—and perhaps it is part of the aging process—I say to both family and good friends “I love you” before I put down the phone or watch them leave. Sadly, and this I’ve learned from experience, you never know when it will be the last time you have an opportunity to utter those words and have them heard.

  After it was all over, after the music stopped and the reception line dwindled, after my children and their spouses and children had left, the apartment was empty, save for my twelve-year-old Chihuahua, Maxie, and me. I sat in the living room gazing at all the flowers sent by friends, trying to hold on to every detail of the beautiful service, but also wondering how John would have reacted, not only to the music and the words—especially to his son’s reading from John’s own book—but also to the outpouring of love and friendship that so many people offered.

  They all had stories to tell or special memories to offer, some gesture John had made or word he had uttered that had stayed with them. John undoubtedly would have been surprised that so many people wanted to pay their respects, since he generally regarded himself as a man who needed and wanted virtually no one around him. But I was not surprised—John was a gentle, completely honest and decent man, whom everybody admired.

  A Surprise Honor

  My Darling Scoop,*1

  Just two days after your memorial service came a telephone call informing me that I had been chosen to receive a 2013 National Humanities Medal. My God, I thought, why couldn’t this have come while you were still here to celebrate with me? I was sitting at my desk in my office, stunned after receiving the news, knowing how you would have let out a huge holler in delight. In my moment of “magical thinking,” I almost picked up the phone to call Brighton Gardens to let you know.

  You would so have loved all the ceremony that accompanied the event. First, a black-tie dinner at the Willard Hotel the night before the presentation at the White House. David came with me, representing you at a glittering dinner. Morgan Freeman, a man and actor I knew you admired and would have enjoyed meeting, was the emcee.

  The next day, the actual awards ceremony began early, first with a gathering at the National Endowment for the Humanities. All of the ten Humanities honorees spoke to an auditorium filled with NEH employees, saying a bit about themselves and their accomplishments. I took those moments to speak of you and how, had it not been for your working to support the family and allowing me the opportunity to become first a volunteer and then a radio talk-show host, this could never have come to pass. I felt your presence so strongly in that room.

  Shortly thereafter we all boarded buses for the White House. Jennie and Benjamin had flown in from Boston just in time for the ceremony. Russell stayed in Boston with Sarah. David, of course, was there with Nancy.*2 Such a beautiful day and such a wonderful occasion, but you weren’t there, laughing and celebrating each moment with our children and me.

  When the time came for the actual presentation of awards, we were all seated in the East Room. As the Marine Band began to play ruffles and flourishes, everyone stood and the President of the United States and Mrs. Obama entered the room. What a thrill it would have been for you to meet the two of them.

  Each medalist was called to the podium individually. When my turn came, I heard the citation read:

  To DIANE REHM, for illuminating the people and stories behind the headlines. In probing interviews with everyone from pundits to poets to Presidents, Ms. Rehm’s keen insights and boundless curiosity have deepened our understanding of our culture and ourselves.

  And then President Obama placed the medal attached to a red ribbon around my neck.

  Afterward it was time for pictures. The Obamas were so generous with their time, taking photos not only with each of the ten Humanities and eleven Arts winners but with the families as well. A beautiful reception followed that reminded me so much of the Christmas parties you and I used to attend at the White House.

  I missed you so much on that magical day, my darling Scoop. If only you could have lived long enough to enjoy it. Then again, knowing how you dreamed for me, I’ll bet you were watching the entire event from above.

  * * *

  *1 John’s nickname from birth, Scoop, comes from his father’s newspaper days in Paris.

  *2 Benjamin and Sarah are our grandchildren—the children of Jennie and her husband, Russell. Nancy is our daughter-in-law, David’s wife.

  Guilt, Guilt, Guilt

  I live alone now, in a condo high above the city of Washington, D.C., overlooking the changing beauty of Glover Park and the far-off landscape of Rosslyn, Virginia. Each clear night I watch the breathtaking sunset and wish that John were here with me to share it. I had never really lived alone. I had gone from my parents’ home to a brief first marriage and then after a short time living with a roommate to marriage with John Rehm.

  Washington has been experiencing one of its most glorious springtime displays in years. Everything is in bloom at once. The dogwoods, redbuds, azaleas, tulips, pansies: an extravaganza of color and beauty. Sometimes I sit on the steps leading to the garden of our condo breathing in the warm air and reflecting on my loss.

  One of the first feelings that strikes me is Guilt, with a capital G. I’ve wrestled with my conscience and the conviction that I should have taken care of John myself during his final year and a half. But that would have meant giving up my career, and I wasn’t ready to do that. And John wouldn’t have wanted me to do that. Also, and it’s hard to confess this, I recognize that some of us are caregivers and I suspect that I’m not one of them. That’s not a comfort or even a justification, it’s just the truth.

  There are moments when the feelings of guilt are overwhelming. Here I sit in this lovely condo, in what was formerly John’s bedroom, working at my computer in comfort, surrounded by beauty, peace, and privacy. John died in a bed in an assisted-living facility a few miles away, having all his physical needs taken care of by good people. But he was not in his own home.

  Though John was in total agreement that the move to assisted living was necessary, that we lacked the ability to provide full-time care here in the condo, I am clearly responsible for his displacement and his discomfort. Had I said, “I will take care of you in this apartment,” he might have stayed alive a little longer. But he had grown weaker and weaker, despite all efforts and medications. He was literally disappearing before my eyes. He seemed so sad, so vulnerable, unable to perform the simplest func
tions for himself.

  Looking back, I ask myself whether I would have acted differently had our marriage been a more fully satisfying one. We had struggled through years of therapy, both individually and together, many times on the verge of divorce, only to realize, really to finally accept, how different we were as human beings. Might we (or I) have made a different decision regarding assisted living? Might I have moved heaven and earth to keep him with me, to live with him, take care of him, no matter what the sacrifice?

  When I look back on our many years together, filled with both times of joy and years of hostility, the endless periods of silence, the physical and emotional distance between us, I realize it was almost inevitable that it had come to this.

  In matters of companionship, John and I were total opposites. He grew up as an only child, completely doted on by his mother, playing alone as a toddler, learning to cope with parents who themselves had an extremely difficult relationship, and who lived apart for most of their married life. John often said he’d prefer to have lunch with The New Yorker than with any human being he knew. I realized that included me.

  As for being with friends and attending social events, he agreed to do so only reluctantly, and managed to let me know just how uncomfortable it made him feel. Aside from his law partner of more than forty years, David Busby, he had no one he would ever phone or seek out to sit and talk with.

  I, on the other hand, grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends. There were so many evenings and Sunday afternoons when I would come home to find people visiting, seated in the living room with my mother and dad. Of course, they were all my father’s relatives; my mother came to this country with no one, leaving behind her mother, sister, and brother, which was, I believe, a source of lifelong depression for her. Nevertheless, she enjoyed having visitors, and I loved seeing my many cousins and running off to play with them.

  I’m fortunate to have many good friends, and lots of people I enjoy being with. Luckily, David Busby’s wife, Mary Beth, and I developed a true and caring friendship during all the years our husbands were law partners. I talked to my dear friend Jane Dixon on the phone every single day for forty-five years, until she died. I had friends from high school with whom I kept in touch, and found myself open to enjoying new friends, something John was clearly reluctant to do.

  Then, too, we approached our young children in totally different ways. John was far more popular as a parent than I was, in part because the kids could always go to him for a “second opinion” if I vetoed some activity or purchase. I was willing to engage with them, to take on the grief and anger that only children, and especially teenagers, can dole out. John was often the absent father, absorbed in his extremely important work during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and, later, as an attorney in private practice. In reality, he was both adored from afar and in some ways resented by his children, as they witnessed the many terrible arguments we would have. Perhaps deep down they might have felt more comfortable had we parted.

  As we grew older, even our tastes in food began to veer sharply apart. Whereas John had previously enjoyed my cooking, now he wanted little more than poached salmon, almost on a daily basis. Friends who invited us to dinner knew I would provide John with “special” food, or, generously, they would prepare it for him. I worried and fretted as he lost weight and grew increasingly thin and frail. If our lives together in times of good health had been so difficult, how could we possibly manage in illness?

  For weeks, both of my children had been urging me to make the move—“The Move,” as I thought of it—that would end the life together that John and I had known for fifty-three years. They saw, as I did, how difficult it had become to manage his health, his frailties, his tendency to do little more than sleep. They feared for him while I was out of the apartment, even for short periods. We engaged a caregiver for six hours each day, but there was still no way to ensure his safety.

  But John resented having a caregiver with him while I was at work. He didn’t believe he needed anyone, though, as time went on, the pain in his back (even after major surgery to insert rods and fuse discs) caused him to have to struggle to walk, bent over at the waist.

  After a disaster with one caregiver who came to us through an agency (“I don’t take people to doctor’s appointments,” she said. “I’m trained as a physical therapist!”), we luckily found Patience Adusei, a wonderful woman whose attitude perfectly suited her name. She was with us for nine months. Patience helped ease John out of bed each morning, stood by as he showered, helped him dress, and prepared his breakfast. She helped him navigate from his bedroom to the kitchen, where he could sit by the window and enjoy the New York Times while he ate.

  After breakfast, she would rouse him, as he inevitably fell asleep after eating. He had been urged by his surgeon as well as his physical therapist to do leg and back exercises on his bed, but little by little the effort became more difficult. He could barely lift his legs or move his feet. Parkinson’s was taking its toll.

  And as time went on, he was sleeping more and more, and when he was awake he needed even more assistance with the daily chores of life. Sleep became his solace, his escape from a world in which he was increasingly losing control. Even his desire to attempt walking in our hallways was diminishing as the pain in his legs and back grew more and more severe. Ordinary remedies like Tylenol and Advil provided no relief, and any stronger medication brought on bouts of nausea and loss of appetite, something he really couldn’t afford.

  From the time he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, five years earlier, he had lost nearly thirty pounds.

  Finally came a night of physical hardship and utter sadness. John got up at 3:00 a.m. to use the bathroom, and fell. Though I didn’t hear him fall, I awoke, sensing something was wrong, and found him lying on the floor in front of the bathroom, unable to get up.

  I’d always heard that when people fall and can’t get up by themselves it’s nearly impossible to lift them. I tried anyway, with no success. John was like a 130-pound sack of rocks, willing but unable to help me help him. Somehow I managed to get him onto his knees, and then pull him to his bedside. Finally I got him up onto his bed. Just accomplishing this much took an entire hour. John immediately fell back asleep, exhausted from his efforts, while I, knowing my alarm would go off in less than an hour, sat wide awake, trying to consider the consequences of what we’d just been through.

  When John woke up just as I was leaving for work that morning, he told me how sorry he was about what had happened. I understood how sad and embarrassed he felt. But I also knew that the time had come for us to have a serious talk about our future.

  At dinner that evening, we were both very somber. John knew what I was about to say, and he knew that he would agree. The prior night’s events had been the final wake-up call for both of us. We decided that I would begin looking at assisted-living facilities for him the very next day.

  The fact that I went on working, plus John’s always having been so careful about saving while he was working, is what allowed us even to consider the extraordinary expense of two separate residences. Assisted-living facilities are very expensive, even at their most basic. We were fortunate enough to find a residence for John close by, one that was the least institutional in appearance of any we visited.

  Together we chose an apartment John liked, bright with sunshine, overlooking a combination of trees and cityscape, which, from its exterior, looked like an elegant condominium. And we created as homelike an atmosphere as possible, choosing drapery fabric identical to that in John’s bedroom here at our apartment, and furniture that was simple but warm and inviting.

  When the day arrived for John to move, in November 2012, Patience came to help me transport him. My husband offered no protest, no indication of regret or recrimination, no outward sign of sadness: pure John Rehm, who always had a chokehold on his emotions, never, through much of his life, allowing me or anyone else to know his internal struggles.
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  When I returned to our apartment at the end of that day, exhausted both physically and emotionally, I bowed to my enormous feelings of guilt and selfishness. It was as though I was standing in front of myself, screaming, “HOW COULD YOU?” And what could the answer be, other than “I had to. That’s all there is to it. There was no other way.”

  I knew I would continue to feel the guilt, and would go on asking myself why I couldn’t keep John here with me. I’m still asking myself: Why couldn’t I have somehow made room for twenty-four-hour caregivers here at the apartment? Why couldn’t I have given up my job to care for him? Why couldn’t we have converted the apartment into a nursing care facility for John?

  The guilt-laden questions are endless. I’ve gone over them with my children, my friends, my therapist, all of whom have been incredibly supportive of me and the decisions that John and I made. But I will never be able to completely erase that nagging feeling of guilt, nor will I ever be able to answer the real underlying question: Why weren’t you willing to give up your life for his? Isn’t that, after all, implicit in the marriage vows we took on December 19, 1959, and renewed twenty-five years later: “till death us do part”? Clearly, I was unwilling to give up for his sake the life we had both come to love, and in which he was no longer able to take part. I will always carry that guilt with me, even as I build a new life, on my own.

  Now Maxie is my daily companion. He became an extraordinarily necessary one to John as well. I took him with me on every visit to John’s living quarters, to be petted and adored by the man who had initially resisted having a dog.