MY PARIS COMEUPPANCES

In 1963 I got married and moved to Paris without any income. I was just a kid — that’s my excuse — I was stupid. I didn’t speak any French but, no worries, my wife had a year of French in high school. She was an expert. Our parents sent us money, $150 from mine $150 from hers.

We were in for a season of trials and tribulations, shocks and comeuppances; it was a well-timed education on all the cultural, intellectual and heart levels. Looking back, it was exactly what I needed, precisely timed by an infinitely wise Universe that must have been worried about me. But I was not disabused of my romanticism, in spite of the pain. In fact, I’m still not. It’s built in to me. It’s here for the duration.

If she was awake she was smoking, my wife, but I had recently quit on the orders of a doctor concerned it was aggravating my ulcer. A few years ago, before she died of cancer, I visited her in San Antonio. She had shrunk to a mere shadow of herself, to use a cliche, still smoking one cigarette after another. She said the doctors told her she could add six months to her life if she quit. “What’s the chance of that?” I asked.

“Oh, I could do it.” she said.

She asked me to pray for her as we said our tearful goodbye. I must confess I don’t know how to do that. She died soon after. I did try, though.