Chapter 2

Nora’s husband, Aaron, and Casey’s wife, Hope, died on the exactly same day in 2014. Aaron and Hope both left behind spouses, children, and all of the love their small families had created. Nearly three years later, they’ve started moving forward … but don’t you dare say they’ve moved “on.”

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

NARRATION
Hi… I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Terrible, Thanks for Asking.
November 25, 2014.
I was 31 years old, sitting on the edge of my bed in my LL Bean pajamas. Staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror that had been in the house before we’d bought it. This mirror faced our bed in a way that was somewhat uncomfortable, and implied we had hung it there for sex reasons. I wanted to laugh about that – about how undeniably sexy we were to have hung a mirror LENGTH-WISE in front of a portion of our bed? But there was nobody there to receive my familiar joke. I had started the day as a wife.
I was ending it as a widow. [PAUSE]
Did I look different? I wondered. Had the change registered on my face the same way it had registered inside of me? I was still 31 on the outside. The same blue eyes. The same purple hair. The same pajamas. The same house the same bedspread. All of this betrayed the fact that I knew with certainty that I’d aged 50 years today, listening to my husband’s lungs take their last breath, feeling his heart stop.
[1 – MUSIC – TILL THE END]
Over the past two weeks of hospice care, the past three years of brain cancer, my universe had both contracted and expanded.
Our physical world was smaller: a tight loop containing the hospital, our living room, our bedroom.
But our psychological world had grown immensely. Both Aaron and myself felt tapped into something bigger than his death, than my grief. We knew that this was life. All around the world, people were suffering and dying. People were being born, feeling joy. We were not special, but we were here. We were a part of this – all of it.
So even when our circle constricted to just the guest room where he lay dying, we were not alone. Someone was doing the same thing. Losing their person.
It was 1:30am.
I stared at my face some more, and thought about this. And while I sat there… 2,000 miles away… someone’s life WAS giving way beneath their feet like a trap door. It was Casey Joens.
[MUSIC OUT]
The person he was losing? Was his beloved wife, Hope. Who he’d known since middle school.
(1) Casey: We started dating in seventh grade. And we were each others first boyfriend or girlfriend… but then our parents found out. And like you guys can’t have a boyfriend girlfriend yet. I think we had like one date where we went rock climbing with two other friends. It was pretty romantic. But I just I always, as cheesy as it sounds, I just I always wanted to be with Hope and I did truly always want to marry her and I just felt very strongly about that from a young age, like… I just want to marry her. But I watched her date a lot of guys. Not a lot but… there’s a couple. And both of them were like more serious. I mean it’s in high school it’s funny saying it was serious relationships. Nora: High school is so serious. Casey: And everyone like… the church we grew up in, like… everyone her brothers… like right out of high school you get married and you start working the trades and you make your family. So… any dating in high school did feel serious because like I’m probably going to marry this person. (1:03)
[2 – MUSIC – Climb]
NARRATION
Aaron’s brain tumor was revealed one year into dating. I never questioned whether or not I would stay with him. I knew that Stage IV brain cancer was bad, but it took a long time for me to realize HOW bad. Frankly, I thought there were 10 stages of cancer, because how is 4 the highest number? 4 is pretty non-threatening. And even when I realized how serious it was – how stage IV is QUITE threatening – I didn’t change my mind. Aaron and I belonged to each other. For better or worse. Til death do us part.
Death is almost always an abstraction to us. To all of us, I think. Hope was born with cystic fibrosis. It’s a terrible disease, and it fills your lungs with crud, and they can’t cure it, and people just DIE FROM IT. Or from complications of being treated for it. And so, from a young age, Hope knew that her life would be a short one. Her AIM screenname was HopeLaline23. It was an emo reference to the fact that, during her adolescence, the average lifespan for a kid with CF was 23 years old.
(2) Nora: So you were engaged when you were 19? Casey: Yeah. I got married when we were 20. Yeah. Nora: How long were you married? Casey: We were married… just shy of… 10 years. (:15)
NARRATION
Even though CF is incurable, it never really felt like the biggest deal to them. Hope was normal. She was pretty healthy. Sure, she SOMETIMES was in the hospital, but she wasn’t living life in an iron lung, waiting for death to take her. She was a bright, vibrant creature with tattoos and a great sense of humor. She had passed age 23 a long time ago. And the future felt…like it existed.
(3) Casey: I always knew she would pass away before me, most likely unless something happened to me. But I thought it would be much later in life and at a point where I’m like even in my 40s or 50s or something like that I was like well… we’ll have so much life to live before then that it doesn’t even matter. And I’m willing and I want to like be her person and support her no matter what and all that. (:27)
[MUSIC OUT]
NARRATION
Aaron always thought there was time for us, and so did I. Even when I understood what Stage IV brain cancer meant.. We had a baby. We took a honeymoon. We went to a Beyonce concert. We paid our mortgage and we went to work. And so did Hope and Casey. They got grown-up jobs, a lovely little apartment in San Francisco, and they pursued Hope’s dream of adopting children.
Little Mari came to them as an infant and made them a family of three. That’s all so normal!
Hope knew from a young age that her life would be short, and yet her death was shocking.
Because it doesn’t really matter whether or not you see the train coming. While I was staring into that mirror, Casey was watching the train make impact. Casey and Hope were at home in their little apartment. Folding laundry. Talking. And like she had been for years, Hope was fine.
(4) CASEY: I got in bed and was reading and then she got up and went to the bathroom I think to take her makeup off came back into the room and she crawled onto me. And I was holding her. She’s small. And suddenly she was like oh my chest. And… I said I love her and she was saying she loves me and… that doesn’t happen every night. And so it felt like a really now especially especially when I was like I was such easy well all read. She’ll be doing treatments and I’ll fall asleep within like a page of reading. And that’s kind of a normal night. We just cuddled for a little bit and then she went around to her side of the bed… lay down. I think she had started reading or something and then she coughed and… I heard something pop like when she coughed You can hear like gurgling and stuff and… it was just a more louder and… she like sat up and she’s like uh oh. (1:06)
NARRATION
There was blood. So much blood. But they’ve seen blood before. But, not like this.
(5) CASEY: And I was like what and she’s like… just started coughing up blood and I was like Oh I’ll go get a bowl. I ran I got a bowl and came back and she was just coughing up blood like uncontrollably. And… I was like do I call like 911 and she was like you’re shaking her head yes. (:18)
NARRATION
Hope was in their bed in the back of the apartment. In a room that had terrible cell service.. The only way Casey could call for help, to get the EMTs to their home, was to leave Hope alone in their room to guide the first responders to their door.
First responders came. Nearby friends and family arrived. But Hope died. On a normal night. In their bedroom.
(6) Casey: I can’t even think about like how scared she was. I mean you could see it when I would run back in her eyes… and even right when it started happening I could see that she knew something was worse than ever before. But I think like when she passed she was just looking out this window like I was she was even looking at me and this seems like why couldn’t I have just been by her side so she could seen me or I could have said something sweet to her and I don’t know. (:35)
NARRATION
We are going to take a quick break. And after we come back…
(7) NORA: Who is Ashley. CASEY: Ashley is my fiance. (:07)
NARRATION
Uh, what?
(8) CASEY: Ashley is my fiance. NARRATION
That’s when we come back.
[[MIDROLL]]
It may help to know that a year and a half passed between Hope and Aaron’s deaths and when Casey and I finally met to record this. (9) CASEY: Ashley Yeah I met Ashley actually. We went to the same… we grew up going to the same church which is same church Hope and I went to and I knew her family. (:16)
NARRATION
Now if you’re like, uhhhh…you’re not alone. There are generally two responses to hearing a widowed person is in love again:
um, too soon. AND
oh, i’m so glad you’ve moved on.
Now, #2hat would be convenient. Emotionally neat and tidy. But it’s not reality. The messier reality is that You bring that past — that love, that person — with you. Into this new life. You can’t help it.
(10) CASEY: I commute down to Sunnyvale and on my commute I’m like halfway through… It’s really beautiful the whole time. But then one of the roads is where is the cemetery where she’s buried. So I feel like every day I almost think about her. I’ve never I’ve still never been. But I drive near it and I see the mountain lights up on and so I think about her every time I pass that sort of. And then when I’m with her nephews and nieces. They all carry things about them that look like Hope and especially… one of the youngest nieces she’s she’s got like just chubby cheeks like Hope had and… whenever I’m with them and you like you look like her like. That’s that’s amazing. (:50)
NARRATION
And your new person has to deal with that. They have to make room for it – for this ghost you’ll always love, and always see – because those are the rules. (11) CASEY: I think there is this risk there is this respect for what was then also. It’s difficult for Ashley to process that. Rightfully so. How do I… I’m the first person that she’s ever loved completely and wanted to ever spend her life with. Yet I’ve already loved someone completely and wanted to spend my life with them. So I think it’s a struggle to like not feel like a second and not compare. (:33)
NARRATION
On November 7, 2015 I woke up stiff and sore, unable to even move my head. Glancing through my diary from that day… one year earlier, I saw that I’d found Aaron alone on the floor in the bathroom after coming home from the gym. He said he was fine wedged between the tub and the toilet. Everything was fine. It was not fine. I called his doctor –secretly, from the basement – to tell him that things were worse. A year later, my body remembered this. It remembered all of the horror to follow. It was bracing me to lose Aaron again.
I went to a friend’s bonfire that night, and a cute man introduced himself, sat in the warped, plastic Adirondack chair next to me, and promptly flipped over backwards as the plastic buckled. All I saw were his feet, illuminated by the campfire, flying backwards, accompanied by a perfect arc of red wine.
I laughed so hard – so hard I couldn’t breathe. The exoskeleton of grief cracked just a little bit. At this man’s expense.
That was Matthew.
Four days later we were on our first date.
I told him everything. And asked him everything. He was 36 years old. Divorced, with a 14 and 9 year old. This was…fascinating. My love had died in my arms. His had changed her mind. Wasn’t that…fascinating? It was less fascinating to him, but he got where I was coming from.
I knew I would never be with someone who made me minimize Aaron. Who made me box him up and leave him behind. Matthew never has.
Periodically, though, I will feel defensive FOR Aaron. I will feel like loving Matthew is a betrayal. Matthew is so sweet. He always says the sweetest things to me. Things like, “I’ve never felt like this about someone” In return, I smile, and I kiss him.
Because if I answered, I’d have to say, “I have.” and there’s no point in saying what he already knows.
[MUSIC]
Hope’s funeral was packed. Among the crowds of mourners were Ashley’s parents. Ashley still lived in the same hometown that Casey and Hope had grown up in. She was finishing college. And Casey didn’t think of her romantically until a very old fashioned thing happened. He started following her on Instagram.
She followed him back, and they just…observed each other’s lives. Casey’s grief was on display. He posted beautiful photos of his daughter Mari. Of Hope. Of the three of them. With haunting captions.
Ashley’s photos were… the photos of a very beautiful, very sweet 22 year old.
When Casey and Ashley met up in real life, there were sparks. But not bright ones. Ashley was seeing someone else. Someone closer to her age. Someone with a life that was…less…complicated?
But when that switch was flipped, it was ON. Ashley and Casey were in love. They were engaged. They were going to move in together. Ashley would be Mari’s mother.
And this brings us back to that first point that people make when they hear about widows falling in love again. Remember that one? Too soon? I sure remember it.
Because I’ve felt it.
We had this interview in the room where Hope died. And at one point I thought, dude…Shouldn’t you pump the brakes?
I thought this while I was carrying Matthew’s baby. While I was cohabitating with him and our children, looking for a new house. While my son was starting to call Matthew his Matty Daddy.
Because I was thinking it about my situation, too. Isn’t this TOO SOON? Shouldn’t I…pump the brakes?
My concern wasn’t that I wasn’t ready, but that the world around me wasn’t ready. That my friends and family and instagram followers weren’t ready for me to be happy again. Because if I were happy, that would obviously mean that I was no longer sad. That I had moved on. That I had reached closure.
Of course I hadn’t. Of course Casey hadn’t.
Matthew and Ashley aren’t cures for losing Aaron and Hope. Casey: For me I feel like my heart like I still love Hope. And I don’t think that love is gone I think my heart just grew to love more… which you don’t think is possible because you like… how can I love somebody again and then it starts to happen. But then that love for Hope is not gone. It’s still there and if obviously if she was here she’d be the one receiving all of it. But my heart is expanding to grow and to love more.. I think people are… the ones that have a hard time with that just don’t want to talk about it. And just slowly stop being involved in your life. (:35)
[BEAT BEAT]
[5 – MUSIC – Biosphere]
NARRATION
One year after that conversation, Casey and I are both remarried. Ashley is now Casey’s second wife. Matthew is now my second husband. I love Matthew. My love for him exists alongside my love for Aaron. It isn’t a contest, it isn’t measurable.
I can love Matthew — and this life — and love my life with Aaron — in part because the Internet — Instagram — made it possible for me to see Casey open his life and his heart to Ashley. TO love her completely and openly, even while he loves Hope. That discomfort I felt? That was me WANTING to love more like Casey, and less like an emotional miser. Sometimes, I do feel like Matthew got the short end of the stick. Because he doesn’t get the Nora that Aaron got. I tell Matthew this. I tell him that the other Nora was awesome. She could manage a chemo schedule, make organic baby food, workout 5 times a week, and work a full-time job. This Nora is fine, I guess? I don’t make any food except cereal. I don’t t do laundry. I don’t clean. I’m always 15 minutes late. Okay, 30. Matthew, for some reason, likes the Nora he got. Here’s what I will say about this nora.
She HAS loved someone like this. She knows what til death do us part means. She’s done it before.
And she’s still willing to do it again.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Our interns are Jeyca Maldonado-Medina, Emily Allen, and Marcus Aarsvold.
Hannah!