The Shock of Spouse Loss

Sunday, September 28, 2014

It’s an unseasonably warm Sunday in late September. I am working at my computer while my wife, Lynn, lies on our bed across the hall, sketching our elderly cat, Jack.

She’s spent a lot of time like that these past two months, feeling increasingly crummy for some reason the doctors can’t figure out. It began as chronic indigestion, then acid reflux, and recently bouts of diarrhea. She’s stopped enjoying her meals and is losing a lot of weight.

Her doctors have given her every kind of scope and scan they can think of— endoscopy, colonoscopy, and gastrointestinal CT—but her internal plumbing looks fine. She also had a spinal MRI last week because of a knot of pain in the middle of her back, but none of them expects much from that. They figure it is “referred pain,” experienced there but originating elsewhere.

When Lynn’s phone rings, I don’t think much of it, but as she speaks her voice tightens. She says, “Hi, Dr. Weinstein,” then, “Yes, I understand,” and finally, “What should I do?”

How Can This Be?

When Lynn hangs up, I walk into the bedroom, where she looks up with a puzzled expression. “That was Dr. Weinstein,” she says, “calling about the MRI. He says there’s something in my spine that shouldn’t be there, and behind it they can see something in my lung that shouldn’t be there. They can’t say for sure, maybe it’s myeloma or some kind of lymphoma, but more likely tumors. I need to see an oncologist right away.”

I am stunned. Lynn is a vibrant, youthful sixty-eight-year-old who moves through the world with a smile on her face. She doesn’t smoke, walks everywhere, easily climbs the five flights of stairs to her studio, and swims sixty lengths in the Columbia University pool five times a week. Just six months ago, she quit her part-time job so she could devote herself to painting full time. How can this be?

Lynn calls her sister but doesn’t want to talk to anyone else, so she asks me to email several of our closest friends and let them know the news. It doesn’t occur to us to keep it a secret.

Then I go to the pool to swim out my fear and frustration – why did these symptoms take so long to figure out? – while Lynn spends the afternoon on our bed, letting the news sink in.

Sweet Memories

Lynn and I met in 1985 at the Columbia University swimming pool in New York City. She was an artist, thirty-nine years old, who supported herself by waiting tables. She had not been in a relationship for some years and had reconciled herself to the likelihood that she would be single for the rest of her life.

I was twenty-nine, a filmmaker, ten years younger, and in the process of getting divorced. I was on the rebound, noticing all the women around me as I tried to reassure myself that my life was not over.

One day Lynn crossed from one lane to another in front of me and I said something like, “Why were you swimming in that lane? You usually swim in a faster one.” Those were the first words I ever spoke to her.

“I was kicking” she replied, so she chose a slower lane.

I thought nothing of it. The next day, when she was doing leg stretches at the end of my lane and I talked to her again, I assumed it was a coincidence.

Later Lynn told me that she was so surprised by this guy paying attention to her, aware of which lane she swam in, that she decided I must be wildly attracted to her. She deliberately stopped and did leg stretches so we would have an opportunity to talk. What she didn’t know was that I was talking to everyone—or at least, to all the cute women—and hadn’t noticed her in particular. This misunderstanding led to our thirty-five-year relationship.

Smart and Funny

I fell for Lynn during our second or third conversation at the end of the lane in the swimming pool. We admitted that we would like to see each other on dry land. I said, “I’m free every night this week except Wednesday, when I have to stay home because I volunteer for the Rape Crisis Intervention Program at St. Luke’s Hospital.” And without missing a beat, she said, “Oh, so you stay home on Wednesday nights and nobody gets raped?”

So quick, so clever, so confident. I mean, who would say such a thing to a near stranger, a joke implying that I must be a rapist, so my staying home would protect women. And how did she know I would find it funny?

This excerpt is from Carrying the Tiger: Living with Cancer, Dying with Grace, Finding Joy while Grieving, by Tony Stewart.  Copyright © 2025 Anthony Stewart. Reprinted with permission from West End Books.

Visit Tony Stewart on his website.

Read more about spouse-loss: The Emotions of Spouse Loss – Open to Hope