I’m not really good
with names, and Ron’s is no exception. Though I like and admire him, we weren't
that close – just friends at church. And because of the way I knew him, there
was never a need to know his last name – he was always half of Ron-and-Charlotte,
which is description enough. Of the dozens of times I saw Ron, there were only
a couple times she was not there. Though they had been married a long time,
you'd hardly know it; they were almost always linked by touch; holding hands, or with Ron’s arm around her – so they
seemed in a way to be a single entity.
When I met them,
Charlotte had already been facing cancer for some time. For a while, it was in
remission, but it returned. They faced it courageously; they faced it together.
Funny – though she relied on strength from Ron, it sometimes seemed that—in all
but her weakest moments—she lent him as much strength as he did her. They were
a perfect couple; both of them brilliant; with her discipline a wonderful
complement to his flights of imagination.
It seemed that the
drive to help her survive and beat the cancer gave purpose to him. And, as much
as she wanted to survive for survival’s sake, she also wanted to survive to
help him achieve his purpose.
Charlotte passed away
three years ago, and since then, I've only seen Ron once or twice. I don’t know
if he couldn't face attending church with people like me, who only knew him as
part of a pair, or if there was some other reason. But he disappeared from our
lives.
You often hear about
older couples who have lived their whole lives together, and simply don’t have
the capacity to go on alone. I have a number of friends whose parents passed
away within months of one another. It’s not something I associate with people
my own age – but then I know few people my age who have been married for over
thirty years, then lose their partner.
We said goodbye to
Ron today.
I will not need to
memorize Ron’s last name now. They are Ron-and-Charlotte again, and the embrace
in which they shelter one another now will never end.
At Ron’s service a
woman performed this medley. She said it was one of Ron’s favorite songs.
