The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,124

cream or not. You won’t remember so many things that you might have once thought you could never forget. Or maybe you failed to think of me for one hour or two or three, or for a day. You may even stop visiting me at my grave site with any regularity. I want you to know that that is okay, that that is how it should be, that that is what I want it to be.

Time’s amnesiac power is necessary and healthy, for it encourages life and living, allowing room for new experiences and new emotions, which come with engaging in the present and being vested in the future, and places our memories where they should be—in the past, to be accessed when we need and want them. And perhaps most important and relevant to you, time allows for the gaping wounds of the past to close so that we can move forward, so that even the most painful experiences can be remembered with some objectivity, from which we can learn and grow. I want you to go on living, Josh. I want you to obsess about sports. I want you to dine in fine restaurants. I want you to travel the world. I want you to raise our children to the best of your ability, which will require you to be so very present and focused on the here and now.

In the ultimate act of living, I even want you to love again. As hard as that is for me to say, I really do.

We’ve spent much time over the last four years talking about the Slutty Second Wife, a name I gave the woman who would replace me within days of my diagnosis. Actually, I have been the one talking about her, while you just rolled your eyes. And I wouldn’t call it talking; it was more like railing, threatening, and ranting. There are women who write letters to their replacements on their deathbeds, wishing them well, but I’m sorry—I can’t. I’m not that generous.

I worry that she will be a gold digger, preying on you in your vulnerable state. I worry that she will be like Cinderella’s evil stepmother. I worry that she will seek to destroy all traces of me from your and the girls’ lives. I fear that she will not prioritize the girls spending time in Los Angeles so that they can continue their relationship with my family, that she will not care about preserving my legacy. I fear that she will brainwash you, and in the stress and business of life, you will forget what was important to me and all the promises you made me to honor my wishes for the girls. Will she completely redesign this apartment to erase as much of me as she can from the home that I built for you and the girls? Or worse yet, will she force you to sell this apartment, which I created for you and the girls to enjoy for years to come? As you know, I have hundreds of worries like these. You tell me to have faith in you. You tell me to trust in your ability to make the right decisions. But it’s hard for me.

Remember the big argument we had about how much time would have to elapse before you could appropriately start dating, get engaged, get married? You googled and recited to me statistics, percentages, about how soon after a spouse’s death the surviving spouse engages in a sexual encounter, in a serious relationship, marriage. There were dramatic differences between widows and widowers, with the widowers doing all of the above much sooner than the widows. For example, 7 percent of widows engaged in a sexual encounter within one year of their spouses’ death, whereas 51 percent of widowers did the same. I was horrified and disgusted. Men are inherently so weak and incapable of caring for themselves and being alone. You talked about being engaged a year after I died, married after two at the latest. I was upset, furious at you. Are you so weak and pathetic?

Granted, you’ve had a long time to prepare for my death. It’s not as if my death will be a surprise. But even so, instinctively, I felt like there should be some minimal amount of time to show due respect to me. But how much is the right amount of time?

I have thought about that question a lot. And here’s my answer, which I’m going to give