Love and Cancer in a Time of Covid

“In sickness” and a silver wedding anniversary

Someone let these two infants get married 25 years ago.

Before 2021 began, I was full of ideas for all the travel I would do this year post-COVID. I would go see friends at my college reunion. I would go to North Carolina to work in the office and see my parents and extended family. We would take our family trip to Australia that had been canceled by COVID in 2020. Maybe I could arrange some other fun trips to Iceland or Germany or Portugal. And since our 25th anniversary was this year, we could plan a trip to celebrate our quarter century of wedded bliss.

Instead, when 2021 began Scotland responded to the second wave of COVID with lockdown and travel restrictions. A jaunt to a romantic destination looked like an unlikely option for our anniversary. As the months of lockdown went on, my back-up idea of an anniversary party in a lovely local venue with friends also seemed less and less feasible. 

COVID kept spoiling my ideas for trips and parties, so I decided we could mark our silver anniversary with a stunning photo shoot—it would be outside, and the photographer would be socially distanced, and we didn’t need to travel far to find gorgeous scenery. COVID would not thwart this plan! 

Our friends Clay and Carmen in Glencoe. Look at how stunning they are! (Photography by Stefania Knecht)

And COVID didn’t—cancer did. That was a variable I hadn’t imagined for 2021. Instead of traveling to Australia, I travel to the hospital in Dundee. Instead of planning a trip somewhere fun, a shuffle from one end of my house to the other counts as an excursion. As the world opened up more, my physical space narrowed; my photoshoot in the Highlands was revised to local photos by the sea, and then to photos in our garden . . . and then I couldn’t safely get to our garden, or comfortably stand or sit once I got there. 

But this isn’t really a tale about my plans to commemorate our anniversary. Cancer canceled the trip and the party and the dramatic photoshoot, but it couldn’t cancel love and care and commitment—the very qualities that brought us through 25 years of life together so far. 

When I first met a skinny, intense 19-year-old boy almost three decades ago, I thought he was interesting and passionate about his beliefs. When we became friends, I thought he was smart and had good taste in music and books. When we started dating, I thought he was honest and authentic and thoughtful. When we got married, I thought he was loving and faithful to his commitments. 

Twenty-five years later, I’m delighted to say I was right. The past few months have been a test of the “in sickness” part of our marriage vows, and he has passed with flying colors. Not once has he complained about the disruption to his own plans—the trips he’s had to cancel and the work projects that progress more slowly. He hasn’t moaned about the added tasks of being the sole driver in the family or taking over laundry duties from me. He’s never made me feel like an inconvenience when he helps me shuffle from room to room, or brings down my clothes for the day, or refills my coffee, or makes sure I’m safely in bed and kisses me good night. 

This was not the silver anniversary either of us expected. We would both rather be packing for Australia than planning for cancer treatment. But this brutal diagnosis has been paired with the beautiful moment of holding each other close and vowing, “There is no one else I would want to go through this with.” I hate how hard this has been for my husband, but I love how he still looks at me like he’s the luckiest man in the world. Whether we are traveling the world or limping across the living room, I’m so thankful this man is by my side.

I still hope and pray that we have more anniversaries ahead to celebrate “in health,” but I am thankful that this “in sickness” silver anniversary has confirmed our love and commitment. Oh, and we did manage to have a photoshoot after all! Our living room is not quite as dramatic as the Highlands, but it is the location where the quiet drama of our love plays out every day—and worth celebrating on our anniversary.   

My wonderful husband and me. (My hair and makeup and photography by Sidney Wilson Washburn)

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