I wasn’t exactly the best choice for a husband. She married me 46 years ago for better or for worse. Thirty-six of those years have been very trying. In 1983, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and became seriously disabled. For 16 years I was confined to a wheelchair. I couldn’t dress myself or tie my shoes, or even cut my meat. Then, in 2012, I was diagnosed with cancer.

LaRee chose to continue loving me.

Half Succeed

About a year ago, I started hand-writing LaRee a love-letter each morning to accompany her medications that I put beside her favorite chair before she gets up. For 20 years I had lost the use of my right arm and hand and was not able to hold a pencil to write.

Now that I can write, my dilemma is this: How do I express the inexpressible? How do I put in words my immense love for LaRee? Our love is what matters to me in this world. My place is with her and her place is with me. We. I am content with life as long as she loves me.

If I dream, let it be about LaRee. If I laugh or weep, let it be with LaRee. I want her to be the first person I see every morning and the last person I see before I go to sleep at night. I want her in every part of my life. “LaRee” is the sweetest word in my vocabulary. Having LaRee in my arms makes me whole: One flesh. Two people united for one lifetime in marriage. LaRee and me.

If our family turned on me and ceased to love me, it would break my heart. But I would get through it, as long as she loves me. If society declared me a pariah or an outcast, I could still walk with my head up, as long as LaRee still loved me.

And if my dramatic MS remission — that allowed me to walk again after 16 years — was to end, and I was forced to return to my wheelchair, I could accept it, as long as she loves me. If LaRee were to pass away before me, I could carry on knowing that she still loves me, and is waiting for me, and resting in God’s perfect love.

 
Mark Davis Pickup is a Canadian pro-life activist. You can read more of his thoughts and story at his blog, Human Life Matters. For more on his life, see Nancy Flory’s profile, Man With Severe MS Walks Again. See also her interview with him about his pro-life work, Fighting Euthanasia.