in sickness and in health

It's funny how five words can be so powerful. Another would be "til death do you part." It's so impactful when you're in love, and when you're standing in that white dress and staring at the man to whom you promise your whole self, you gotta tell yourself that being with this guy does not mean life gets any easier. Getting married only means that you have someone else who's problems to worry about until either you or he dies. Whichever comes first.

When my aunt got married in '92, she repeated those exact words as she faced a distinguished looking, 40-something gentleman of Italian descent. He is thirteen years older than she is, but what is age when you're in love? It was so romantic in every cliche. We flowergirls and bridesmaids were adorned in fuschia dresses that my grandmother had sewn by hand. She even sang in the church to him some Nat King Cole song whose title I don't remember at the moment. (And as something not pertaining to this story, the fact that I do not recall this song at the moment will drive me crazy the next couple of days.)

Fastforward 15 years. While she's at the prime of her life, his time-ravaged body is failing him, and she has to deal with it. As long as they've been married, all the time this man is suffering some sort of ailment. I would not be surprised if he had never been healthy a day in his life. In later years as I grew more socially aware, I did begin to realize that theirs may have been more of a marriage of convenience. Not to say that my aunt was a golddigger, because she was well established in her profession while she was still single. It seems more and more to me that they both married each other for what they were rather than for who they were. It's not that every match made in this fashion doesn't work out, but in this case my aunt didn't know beforehand the sort of person she was getting involved with.

To elaborate, my aunt is an old-fashioned, nurturing Filipina who wanted a financially well-to-do man, while her husband was a bachelor with an Asian fetish who had seen better days and was looking for more consistency in his homelife.

Getting back to the present, their marriage had been on the rocks for some time, while I'm supposing he has been unfaithful in all sorts of other ways excepting the physical. Being the strong Filipina woman she is, she is willing to stick by him, even though she already knows he is not emotionally committed anymore, and she is sticking to that 15-year old oath until he decides to leave her, or dies. Whichever comes first.

So, while my mother tells me all this, I wonder aloud, "why would she go through all this for a man who had said to her face that he wanted nothing more to do with the marriage?"

My mother replies: "She can't wait to be rid of him, but he won't leave when he is sick all the time and he takes care of her."

Mental followup: why does he have to do the leaving? I'd think that it would be best for her to leave him now while he is still in relatively good health. In spite of the fact that he's in the ER right now, I say "relatively" in consideration that his health is a bell curve with the peak somewhere around 35. It's all downhill from his vantage point, and with him she's got nowhere else to go.

But really, all this is bad. I'd imagine that whatever happens, their daughter will be in need of many hours in therapy.