My Favorite Husband, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

April 21, 2012 Martha Thomases 2 Comments

When I told my husband that I would never forgive him if he died on my birthday (which was Thursday), I should have been more specific.  What I meant was that he should wait a month or so.

He showed me.

John died Tuesday morning, after a six-month fight with lung cancer.  As you can see here and here and here and here, he was a pretty spectacular human being.  Funny, sweet, smart, a dedicated father – and, because my son reads this, I’m not going to talk about how great he was in the sack.

We were together nearly 35 years.  It was not a fairy-tale relationship.  We had our ups and downs.  There were some arguments we had so frequently that I stopped having them.  Whenever I wanted to start, I could just play it out in my mind, thinking what I’d say, imagining what he’d say.  I could get just as angry, and then just as sulky, without disturbing him.  I suspect he did the same.  We were considerate of each other that way.

Because the personal really is political, here is what I’ve learned.  In our national dialogue over the last several decades, we’ve argued a lot about what makes a family.  We worry about how people put their various protuberances into other people’s various orifices.  I’m here to testify that, while sex is great, and who you love is who you love, the real test of intimacy is who do you want to die with.  Who do you want to take care of you when you’re helpless?  Who do you want to hold you when you’re having spasms?  Who do you want to wipe your ass when you lose control?  And who do you want to care for when that person is going through those torments?

If you are very lucky, you will get to go through this with someone by your side.

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Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, asks that donations in memory of John Tebbel be made to the War Resisters League.