Rosita and David

Actions better explain love, as love is an action word. It requires a series of give and takes between a man and a woman to fulfill just a short 60,70 years on this earth together. I want to share a love story that I encountered during my time as a Hospice Chaplain years ago.

Rosita and David had come from entirely different lives. Rosie, as she would have me call her, came from a very conservative, extreme spiritual family in Argentina. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a teacher. And David was born and raised in New York City. He lived most of his early days within the confines of a few city blocks.

David told me in our first conversation that during his childhood, everybody knew and looked after one another. It was funny, he told me I had ten moms. He remembered that if he had done something wrong, it didn’t matter whether it was his mom or one of the other moms correcting him; he was in trouble either way. It was a very safe time to grow up. He never felt any fear wherever he was because there were so many eyes that looked after him.

Assisted Living Together

I first met Rosie and David at an ALF, which, if you didn’t know, is short for Assisted Living Facility. Working as a Hospice Chaplain, they both came to our service, meaning that they both had something that would be life-ending. When entering their apartment, the first thing I noticed was the way they greeted me and the smiles that never left either of their faces.

Rosie was the talker. She couldn’t wait to tell me their story. They both taught at a university in a Latin American country. She was a science teacher, and he is a Spanish language teacher.  I remember thinking he was the last person you would think would teach Spanish, as he looked like me.

David was tall, thin, pale-skinned, and had blonde hair. Not what you would expect to teach the Spanish language in a Spanish-speaking country. When Rosie told me what David had done at the university, I had to ask, ‘David, how in the world did you get such a position?’ He had been raised around Spanish-speaking people, and it was almost a first language for him. Becoming fascinated with this language, he would eventually go on to teach it.

Working Years

Rosie and David worked together for all those years. She had been there a couple of years before David. However, they seemed to hit it off and became great friends, as did some of the other professors. This close group would go on trips and outings outside of the time they spent teaching.

Thus, the day came that David was preparing to retire and had given notice that this would be his last semester teaching. As the day drew closer to David’s retirement, he told me that he had started to realize he would no longer be spending time with his close group of friends, and that bothered him. Rosie also began to feel the same way; she could never tell David that, as she thought that was too forward.

As his last semester of teaching drew to a close, he began making plans to move back to the United States, specifically to New York City. Rosie would tell me that David couldn’t sleep. When telling me this, she had a smile on her face that looked like that of a sixteen-year-old. Blushing as one first in love, I understand that when I met them, they were both in their mid-nineties. So, I found that wonderful in Rosie. She was so prim and proper until she spoke about David, and her voice filled with excitement as she talked about their love.

‘I Love You’

Rosie went on to tell me about the night David came to her home. It was in the middle of the night, and a knock on her front door woke her.  It was at this moment that Rosie blushed at the thought of David standing at her door; she began to understand that he would soon be gone, and her heart was troubled. Well, Rosie’s upbringing kicked in, and she certainly couldn’t entertain a man in her home at that time of the night, or anytime, without a chaperone. Turning on the porch light and stepping out on the front porch. And before she could ask what was going on, David started to talk.

David was excited, speaking in circles and looking confused, which was out of character for him.  What came out of his mouth next was unbelievable. David paused for a moment, then swallowed deeply and blurted out. “I love you”. It was like being a young girl again, even though she was in my early sixties. He followed up with, “Come with me. Marry me. I can’t be without you.”

Days later, they were married, surrounded by our close friends.

Decades later, there they were, she with heart failure and David with dementia. How wonderful that they spent twenty-five years together, being in love.

Dying Together

It wasn’t long after I started to visit them regularly that I got the call that David’s life was coming to an end, and Rosie had asked me to go and pray quickly. Entering the apartment, I sat down in a chair on one side of the bed as Rosie sat on the bed on the other, holding David’s hand. Rosie was stoic and focused on every moment of David’s care. She had a wet towel in her hand, wiping David’s face as this had a cooling, relaxing effect on David. It was not long after I sat down next to David and prayed that he was gone.

I’m so sorry, Rosie, I said.

Don’t be sorry, Chaplain, she told me. We had often talked about this day, and we both understood that it was just a season for one of us to leave and the other would follow. After spending time with Rosie and helping her make the call so David would be picked up.  And as I comforted her, I noticed her thin, frail body moving uncontrollably as she was sobbing, not crying, but sobbing—such a difference in the two.  I did David’s grave site service, and there was just me and Rosie, as they had no family. She thanked me for my care and the respect I showed to David.

Less than a week after David’s gravesite service, I received a call from the A.L.F.  Rosie was gone. They had gone to wake her for breakfast, which she had stopped eating altogether after David’s death, which concerned me, and I spoke to her about that, and she told me that doing even the simplest things like eating was too sad, as they had done everything together.

Read more about hospice: Writing to a Friend in Hospice – Open to Hope

Check out John’s book: Remember Me: End of Life as Seen through the Eyes of a Hospice Chaplain: Kirn Wenderlein 111, John Kirn: 9798890742575: Amazon.com: Books