My dad was an affectionate father but not someone I would describe as a loving husband or partner. We knew as children, because of what Dad told us, that he hadn’t wanted to get married, that his mother “forced him” to find a wife and make a life. He was 48 or 49 at the time, and I would imagine he would have preferred to have been a “confirmed bachelor,” a term that I think was clearly of that era.

Dad also made no secret of the fact that he felt he had settled on his choice of mate. In fact, it was clear he felt that he could have “done better” but, be that as it may, he married our mother and they were together for 26 years of marriage, until her death from breast cancer at the age of 62.

He was not an easy man, my father, and most of his difficult behavior was focused on Mom. He’d blame her for decisions he’d made that didn’t turn out the way he hoped, he would get angry and not speak to her for days. The worst moment I can remember is when she had her mastectomy. It was, as was common in those days, a radical mastectomy with lymph node removal. It was so extensive that months later, she had to have a skin grant to allow the area to close and heal. I was 14 and not entirely sure what any of this meant or why it was happening. But I knew enough to be afraid.

Dad met with the surgeon as she was being discharged from the hospital. The doctor showed him the size of the tumor and I remember Dad showing it to Mom, and us, as the size of part of his thumb. He was very angry and going on about how it was “that small” and yet they had done this major surgery.

It was the first, and only, time that I ever remember her being angry with him. And she did not speak to him for days or longer. We had family come to visit her at home and she was pointedly ignoring him. I am not sure how that situation resolved itself but it did, although they no longer shared a bedroom after her surgery. I imagine that he could not cope with the physical “imperfection” that was the result of the cancer, that was the result of the surgery.

I asked her, a couple of years later, why she didn’t leave him. I could have given her a hundred reasons. Now, years later, I could probably add a hundred more. But, in response to my questions, her eyes filled with tears and she told me that she loved him. I didn’t understand it then and I am not sure that I do even now.

The only sentimental moments I remember clearly are when Valentine’s Day rolled around. He would buy her a huge heart-shaped box of candy and a card that would make her cry. In later years, I would push him to get birthday gifts for her and I would often be the one dispatched to do that. But he would buy the card, filled with the words of love that I never saw him express.

When the cancer recurred, and was in her pubic bones and beyond, Dad did become more of a partner, taking her to chemo, being there when she was ill. She wanted to be home at the end and he brought her home from the hospital a few days before she died. The last night of her life, her struggle to breathe frightened him and he called an ambulance. When he got to the hospital the next morning, she opened her eyes and took his hand. And then she died. The agency nurse he had hired to stay with her overnight looked at him and said “She was waiting for you.” And I believe that she was.

In the end, I think, or perhaps I hope, that he realized that he loved her. I know that she loved him every day of their life together. I think about how difficult it was for her, how much she endured. And I think about how blessed I am, to have a husband who is a true partner, whose love is demonstrated in big ways and small every day. We each find our own path, may we each find one that allows us to grow and fill our full hearts.