Jan Lead's YWCA Strides for Strength Walk

Jan Lead's YWCA Strides for Strength Walk

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Our Last Conversation

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes, 52 seconds

Pillow Talk

Although I had only been downstairs for at most ten minutes, I was sure she was asleep when I returned to the bedroom. I placed the water bottle with the crushed ice chips by her bed and proceeded to the bathroom. When I got to the edge of the bed, I stopped and looked at the love of my life. She was home at last, hopefully home for good. 

I started this bedtime routine at the beginning of the year. When I crawled into bed, I leaned toward Jan and whispered how much I loved her. Even if she was sleeping, I wanted her to know how much she meant to me. 

“I am awake, and I love you too.”

I moved my arm across her chest and held her lightly. 

“What worries me if I die is that you would have to live alone the rest of your life,” she said as she started to cry. 

I kissed her tear-soaked lips, “I will live alone but not be lonely.

I want you to be happy,” Jan said as tears swallowed her words. I don’t want you to be alone and unhappy. You are a wonderful, loving husband….

I kept repeating that she should not be worried about me. 

“Promise me, promise me, if I die, you will re-marry!”

“I am seventy-two, not twenty-seven,” I started to say. As I said, I remembered Jan almost left me when I was twenty-seven.

I told Jan that I was sure no woman would want me as a husband. 

There are many women who tell me they love you. You have been a great husband, a wonderful lover, and the light of my life!

I laughed. Your sense of humor is as good as ever! If they say they love me, it is because of my work, not me!

“I am not joking,” she said. “If you were not married to me, many women would want to marry you? Especially if they knew how you always focused on my needs and not yours, especially when we made love.”

Who would want to marry me? I am old, overweight, and my body is dysfunctional.

“That’s not true!” she shouted. She then described her body in terms that made no sense to me. I disagreed with her but soon realized it was hopeless. 

As she criticized herself, I could think about how beautiful she looked when I helped her get ready for bed. If she wasn’t sick and I wasn’t dysfunctional.

I reached over and kissed her tear-soaked lips in the middle of one of her sentences.

“Nice try,” she laughed. “But you have to promise me you will re-marry!”

I never wanted to lie to her, but I could not make that promise. But then I thought about her mother asking her if we would live in her house. Jan said no and always regretted saying that to her mother.

“I promise…” I said as I kissed her again. I did not finish the sentence, and in my mind, I whispered I would get a dog but then remembered our lease prohibited it. 

“Thank you! I want you to be happy,” she said as the tears flowed like an open fire hose. 

I am happy! I am happily married to you!”

“I am glad you are happily married to me. So as long as I am alive, you had better not get too close to any of the women I know who love you,” Jan said as her crying intensified. “And you had better not try to sleep with any of them!”

“My love, I only want to sleep with you,” I said, exasperated.

I tried to change the conversation to talk about the next steps in her treatment. Jan reminded me that I needed to get support and help. 

“Yes, I will. At the hospital, they had a flyer from CancerCare. I will reach out to them about caregiver support next week. Plus. I also have the boys, friends, and others who will help me.”

Her breathing slowed, and soon she was asleep. I kept my arm around all night. When I met Jan, I had to accept the end of another relationship. To embrace the future this time, I will need to find a way to bring Jan with me.

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The New Wilderness

Read: October 2021

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The New Wilderness

by Diane Cook

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. The New Wilderness is a timely book and one that resonated with me. When Jan and I met in 1973, it was a revolutionary time with movements encouraging communes and returning to the farm. Neither Jan nor I were interested in living in a commune. Reading this book helped reassure me that we made the correct choice.

The summary of the book is:

Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change; A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they slowly and painfully learn to survive in an unpredictable, dangerous land, bickering and battling for power and control as they betray and save one another. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of this new existence, Bea realizes that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way. The farther they get from civilization, the more their bond is tested in astonishing and heartbreaking ways.

At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary novel from a one-of-a-kind literary force.

When I finished this book, I read Pompeii Still Has Buried Secrets by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker. It reminded me of all of the threats to civilization that we face, who will be Pliny the Younger to be “the only surviving eyewitness account of the disaster.” Fleeing our cities for the wilderness is no longer an option!

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Read: April 2025

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Vanishing World

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Sayaka Murata is the author of several books, including Convenience Store Woman, which won the Akutagawa Prize, Earthlings, and Life Ceremony. Freeman has recognized her as a “Future of New Writing” author, and Vogue Japan has honored her as a Woman of the Year.

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When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

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The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick is a unique and thought-provoking speculative novel that delves into themes of heartache, hope, and resilience. It explores the complexities of grief and healing, raising essential questions about recovery after loss and the lengths we go to in search of healing. This powerful exploration resonated with me and provided ample food for thought. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

The Poppy Fields is a captivating speculative story that explores themes of healing, self-discovery, forgiveness, and the power of newfound friendship. Located in a remote stretch of the California desert, the Poppy Fields offers hope for even the most battered hearts seeking to heal. Nikki Erlick‘s unique narrative technique adds an extra layer of intrigue to the story.

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When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

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Read: June 2022

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Midwives by Chris Bohjalian is “a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published.” Forty years after the book was published, it is just as relevant, if not more so. Indeed, the book’s topics are more relevant today with the current set of decisions by the Supreme Court.

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