THE FUSE

“The husband I treasured had disappeared. Why was I happy?” That was the subtitle of a recent article in the New York Times by writer Annie Korzen, describing her feelings after her husband's death. Like me and my longtime romantic partner Brian, who died this year, she and her husband were in their 80s. They had an even longer relationship than ours—60 years!—as compared with our mere 30 years together. Also like me, she coped with an intense period of caregiving before the death.