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More than just taste good, oh from the New York Times and WB. You are Boston. This is modern love, the stories of love loss and redemption. I'm your host magnetron puberty, the when Patty Dann met her husband, William. She was in her late thirties, dreams of a lifelong partner and family were all but complete. But then reality struck. Minnie driver stars in the a b c comedy speechless here she is reading. Had he didn't say our story ended with a slow feed to black. The snowy night,

Well, I'm at a synagogue in New York City. I knew we would marry, but I did not know that it would only last ten years he was sitting in front of me and I fell in love with the back of his neck. The floor sloped down to the front, so I didn't realize he was six foot three more than a foot taller than I was He was from the Netherlands, one of the Mennonite Minister, who was drawn to Judaism. I was a child of suburban assimilated Jews. He was almost forty and had never wed, and I was thirty seven and had just about given up on that jewish or otherwise

soon after he dragged me to the lower east side, where we met an old rabbi who looked at us a bit askance and said wisely, you will have a sweet and crazy life together, which we did nine years later in April, a little family Willem Jake a three year old Son and visited, a friend a sheep in Connecticut, when we return to New York will improve the car on the street near our apartment. We walk the car with Jake riding on William shoulders in the middle of the block, I said: shall we get the car seat? Willem said? What's a coffee and with that seemingly simple question, we entered a new kingdom Over the next three days, Williams personality began to change. He always had a bit of a temper

But one morning he asked if I had an ink pen, he sometimes use different forms of english words, but when I handed him a ballpoint because we didn't own ink pens anymore, he began to scream at me. He agreed to go to a marriage counselor, who advise will have a check up. I sat with afar and brow and the examining room as the doctor tickle his vital signs. My husband was a marathon runner and talk condition of healthy lungs in a healthy heart. But then the internist began to ask him questions the doctor held up a paper clip and William said. I know what it does, but I don't know the word for it and just with Note Williams, first language.

This was something else, I'm concerned the doktor said and scheduling brain I'm are immediately. I drop Willem at his appointment. Five blocks away and went to pick up. Jake preschool before Willem got home the phone rang. It was our doktor, he said softly, I'm sorry, but I have very bad news. Your husband has guy a bus Doma, which is the worst form if brain cancer Jake could open the refrigerator and was pouring orange juice on the floor. Do you want me to tell him the doctor asked Jake was tugging on my sleeve to show me his handiwork? No, no. Thank you. I murmured I'll. Tell him tell me one thing: is he going to die yet

He said in the middle of the night, while William and Jake slept I got up on Google glass timer, I read The patient will slowly lose all memory as well as all bodily movement. Next day I found Willem reading on the couch in the living room. He was reread. A novel in Dutch by the author, J Burnett called out of mind. It is about a husband who slowly loses his mind and ability to speak. I huddled next to him. Why are you reading this now? He shrugged. Maybe it will help me I'm having trouble with words.

yes, I said and took a deep breath. Do you want to know about the MRI? What's that he said the picture, the picture they took of your brain? Yes, thank you. He said he'd always been a former man, but already his space different and then, as simply as I would say, we needed a new rug. I said you have a brain tumor. He nodded and then went back to his book a half hour later, William call to me, while I was in the kitchen trying to feed Jake Pasta wagon wheels without weeping. What's it called the tumor

A call back his cheerily as I could guy a bus Doma trying to make it sound. Like a lovely flower Williams. First operation lasted for hours after the surgeon came out. I stood before him waiting to hear our destiny. We got most of it out. He said I have myself. When is she going to die one here? Maybe to very few people. Ask that question. I don't know why. I was so blunt, of course they're miracles. Of course there are exceptions, but I wanted to know the worst case scenario. For me, that made me feel more in control, even though I was acutely aware, I was in control of nothing live in the moment. All you have is the day we're all terminal.

These phrases ricocheted through my head. Some friends immediately looked up Williams, illness and forwarded the dire discoveries. To me, others told me it must be because he used a cell phone. Although he did not own one blueberries wrote a friend on a postcard from California. The antioxidants will do it blueberries at the key Willem was a historian. He worked. the director of a photo archive and spent so long on his doctoral dissertation that I called him doktor footnote and though he was a researcher. He never once looked up his disease and had no desire to join any kind of support. Group. he wanted to return to his job and work with his beloved photographs and papers. He wanted to write a book about displaced persons in world war. Two he wanted to go to Prague for his fiftieth birthday. He wanted to take Jake and me bike riding in Belgium and run

from some day in Tokyo. I have. No interest in cancer. He declared, even if it has an interest in me,. I he knew. What the outcome of his illness would be. It was his I dare call the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. A woman quoted prices over the phone. Do you want a single, double or triple site when William was back on his feet with a Nike headband on his head, covering his scar and Jake was a preschool we drove out of the city to the big colic cemetery on a hillside. I was nervous having Willem Drive. I always was nervous with him at the wheel. He had learned in this country as an because growing up in the Netherlands, his mode of transportation was a bicycle.

Now, he loved to put the pedal to the metal and screamed dutch words of joy. He accelerated we arrived safely at the cemetery gentleman carrying a transistor radio to his ear. Listening to a Mets cardinals game showed us around. Then we took the proper papers to fill out, my head spun wondering when my time would be afterwards. went out for cheeseburgers and milkshakes and drove back to the city, went home and made love a week before his fourth birthday Jake announced that he wanted a cake in the shape of a firetruck. I am not a baker. I have the urge to bake, perhaps twice a year and that usually results in an apple or pumpkin pie with I confess, store, bought crust.

But my son wanted a cake in the shape of a fire truck and in that way, that mothers are able to lift cause of their children's feet in an emergency. I somehow made one I used practically a whole bottle of red die in the frosty which in earlier

Would a pull me, but now I reasoned that, if Willem grew up on the purest whole wheat, bread and beat salad, perhaps junk food was the key to a long life. I decorated the cake with care: licorice houses peppermint wheels, but a scotch headlights and lattice of thin pretzels for ladders. It was my offering to my son on what I knew would be his last birthday with his father. We had two party in central park. Friends help pushed the party favours in food and carts William was able to walk the slowly but with elegance holding my hand wearing his navy, Blue Nike had banned the children sat a picnic table for cake. Jake blew up

candles on the fire truck cake and made a wish during that period of our lives he made wishes whenever candles were lighted and an eyelashes and fluffy dandelions, I always make the same wish mom he'd say, and you can never ask me what it is I didn't ask regardless when I'm died on the day of the funeral, I couldn't get Jake to. Why would he cooled his lots of buttons shirt? You did at Quiesce to a Navy blue polo shirt with three buttons at the synagogue. When Williams for you to charging him Jake began to lose patience and tugged on my arm. I want to go to the digging part. He said. Finally, we drove out of the sissy dazed and weary

the cemetery on the hill, where women I had lively, picked out a spot and spend a romantic afternoon. Only months before sweet wind blew in your guest after noon. We all took turns shovelling and the way the rabbi had instructed with a shovel upside down to show this was a special kind of digging and then a picture. I thought I would never see my four year old son reach for the shovel and he too dumped to show.

Full of that onto his father's plain pine coffin, the train whistled in the valley below us and Jake handed the shovel to his cousin and put his arms straight up in the air. I knew what he wanted. I lifted him up, as the rabbi said, prayers and we watch the train. Snaking by I held him tightly and we waved to the far off travelers hmm the

many driver reading, Patty, Dan's essay. Our story ended with a slow fade to black Patty joins us after the break.

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I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words, words. I I was nervous. I sent it to my parents or something like that me and my dad. We like to play fun together and I wish other out. I forgot to see it. J, a c k, P, o t jack. again run nice, I'm same as the sky. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try, spelling bee and all our games at N Y Times dot com. Slash games were back. It's modern love. The podcast I magnetar birdie, After Patty Dan modern Love, essay was published, many women, with similar experiences began to reach out to her, especially those widows with young children. Emails turned into phone calls which turned into visits,

and it got so that my son would answer the door at age four and say mom. You take care of the mom I'll. Take care of the kid. The particular thing: being a mother with a very young child. Was something that many people could relate to, whether it was somebody as myself who had the privilege of. Saying goodbye to my husband from cancer. There or Later on, I met many nine eleven widows who of course lost their spouses. Suddenly wives soldiers- and we really- you know we're just all there on the playground in a jumble- Patty's new life, as a single mom, didn't give her that much time for morning, I would say it was more grief and motion, and I had to work. I had take care of I kid suddenly alone. It was great joy of having a young child and great sorrow at the time. So there was no contemplative time in our remember, I needed a permission

look for my son to go apple picking. You know- and I practically handed his teacher my husband's death certificate. Eventually she just could not contain the grief. My son would be frightened when I cry I'd, and so I would cry in the shower, and but it was several years later I was at a deep sleep in the middle. night and I woke up sobbing and that one day. I did join a a widow and widowers group, but not not at the beginning. I mean I don't know how people have time for the five stages of grief, quite frankly, had he did find love again a reporter for the more son who had also lost his spouse, wrote a piece on grief. It included a warm review of patties memoir about women death, so in the middle of the night I just wrote to him dear Mister Hale, thank you for the level words and I'm sorry for your loss. We emailed for three months and

His son would come in and say I see how flirty flirty you get with him and I wasn't aware that I was being flirty flirty. and Michael Hill started dating eventually married at the time. Jake was in and Michael's two boys were in college today. Jake is twenty one. Michael sons are twenty eight and thirty. Two patty says there sure Losses have given their sons a lot to talk about over the years, and the same goes for petty and Michael I think one of the reasons my husband and I were drawn to each other is along with the fact that we have a lot of fun share. Many things and we're both writers is. We did have this loss and we We have photographs of my first husband and his first wife up, they the parents of our children. I mean this is our story. Writer, Patty dear her latest.

Are the butterfly hours transforming memories into memoir and the goldfish went on vacation, a memoir of loss and learning to tell the truth about it? She lives in New York. thanks again to many driver. She told us that she loved paddies essay because of its thoughtful simplicity. What is happening is so sad and so awful Yet the author writes with such grace and a gentle humor and allowing of the reality, and I love the humanity of that. I love what her life was. I love the dignity that it sounds like her husband died within, and I like thinking about how I hope our life ended up, really happy.

driver. She stars in the ABC Comedy speechless. You can see it online and on demand Daniel Jones on the darker side of modern love. After the break I love spelling my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other. We're playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes, when I open up spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed. Sorry, it may have happened again. I have one friend, I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words that I always get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something like that.

me and my dad. We like to play fun together and I wish the out I forgot to see it. J, a c k, P, o t Jack, yeah yeah now run nice I'm same as earth's the digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at N times, dot com, slash games, Here's Daniel Jones, editor of modern love. We get more stories about death. About people losing loved ones than any other topic. Devastating essays, we run and the ones that are about these really torturous ex Variances are best carried off if they're just told Great clear, eyed and unsentimental way- and I think that's what Patty pulls off in

in this essay. It's such an alarmingly tragic story that there's no need to play that up. How are you don't? just need to say, what's happening and focus on those Small details, they're going to be so charged with emotion, next week on modern love, Christmas, Siena of the mini project and the film the sweet life on the emotional. play cities of organ donation Pamphlets- mentioned the psychological toll of waiting to die or of waiting for even grimly rooting for someone else to die so that you can get that person's lungs. They don't explain how not to feel like a monster about that now tells you that the physical scars are the easy ones

modern love is a production of the New York Times and W B you are Boston, NPR stationed it produced directed at edited by Albert John Prodi, and AM receiver said extra help this week from producer Catherine Brewer and met reed. The idea for the model of pod cast was conceived by LISA Tobin. Iris Adler are negative producer. Daniel Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the podcast, courtesy of a p I make no upper see you next week The.