My wife, Dorothy, is gone. But she had been going for a long time. She died peacefully, in her sleep, on May 24. Her condition had been diagnosed as an advanced case of Parkinson’s, and in the last months she was unable to do anything for herself. Although not demented, and not appearing to be suffering, she couldn’t speak or write or stand, and could barely move her hands. She had chosen to remain at home, but fortunately, there were some wonderful caregivers, who were with her for 12 hours every day. The other 12 she was in bed, and I was there in the house — but she never once needed me. I read to her twice a day, and prepared her pills and some of her food, but otherwise had little responsibility.

Dorothy was 86, and many of the people who knew her well, before these last sad years, are now themselves gone. But we were together for 51 years, and of course I can tell you what a vibrant, spirited personality she was. I have often written about her, but since there won’t be any funeral or other formal memorial, there is just one piece I would like to share with you as my own tribute to her memory. It is a letter I originally sent to my email friends in 2003. It’s not very long, and I hope you can read the whole thing. Here it is:

Monday, October 27, 2003

Dorothy and I recently returned from a British Museum tour of eastern Turkey. If you like long bus rides, punctuated by opportunities to clamber about the ruins of old churches, castles, and other edifices, this would definitely have been for you. I myself was there mainly to accompany my remarkable wife, who had actually done the same tour less than two years previously and liked it so much that she wanted to share it with me. To her, however, one of the high points of the whole trip had nothing to do with old ruins. It was an unscheduled visit to a research institute in the city of Van, which is on a large lake of the same name.