And so, it ends.

I remember the moment as clearly as if it occurred yesterday. Friday evening, November 22, 1990. The day after Thanksgiving; the MHS 25 year class reunion. I was standing at the back of a group of classmates I hadn’t seen in a quarter century, when she approached, drink in hand, looked me in the eyes and said, ”You don’t remember me, do you?”

It was the moment that changed our lives forever. I was smitten. When our eyes met, it was as if she looked into my soul. My heart quivered and my knees got a little weak. What was to begin that night was a 33 year long adventure that made my life.

Karen was the purest, gentlest soul I have ever known. She changed my life, and made me a better person. She became a moral compass to me. She was insatiably intelligent; simply the most Interested person I have ever known…she was interested in everything. She read voraciously, and had encyclopedic knowledge of birds, of wildflowers, of textiles and their history. You could find on her shelves a book about the history of salt, or the oyster industry in New York before the 20th century, just as you were likely to see her reading about historic women’s clothing from the First World War.

Karen had a quiet elegance about her, from the way she lived her life to her presentation of self, and to the things she loved…beautiful objects, no matter how small or insignificant. She was a passionate history re-enactor, who loved Living History events, where she taught today’s younger generation about the Great War, and the rôle women played in France.

Together, we spent some 25 years traveling to France with every vacation day available. Along the way we criss-crossed the country meeting people, making friends, visiting tiny, picture postcard villages, often wondering out loud, “What would it be like to live in such a place?”

Over time, and with a hefty dose of the utterly unexpected, we became absorbed into a French family, whose concerted goal was to make it possible for Karen and me to live permanently in France, in their tiny village.

The pieces slowly fell into place as we rented places from our French family whenever we had weeks, and later, months to stay. For the entire 2 years of the covid lock downs we lived the life of residents of the village, their “adopted Americains” (We called ourselves their Pet Americans).

Last year, after shuttling bits and pieces of our possessions to France over the years, we signed a long term lease on our own little home in the the village, and our erstwhile French family arrived instantaneously, armed with ladders, paint and brushes, to paint the entire interior of the house, all the while literally elbowing us out of the way, saying “C’est normal. Vous êtes tous les deux de la famille”

Last December Karen had her first Christmas in the new house, with a tree she decorated with all of the antique ornaments she collected over the years and very carefully carried with her to France. She wanted a train for under the tree, so I found one…and our cat spent the holidays stalking the thing. I think Karen was as happy as she ever was in France over all those years.

On New Years Eve the clock struck 12, we hugged a long, loving embrace, then kissed to officially seal the ‘Happy New Year”, looking forward hopefully to 2023. It was the last New Years kiss we would ever have. It never occurred to me that might be the case. But Karen may have suspected. She had told me before that I was in denial.

We returned to the US after the New Year, and on June 18 we left our house, bound for Johns Hopkins for another chemo treatment for Karen. But doctors looked at test results and said she needed to be admitted for observation. We had no idea. We had talked casually about where to go for lunch after she was done, as we often did. But we didn’t leave, didn’t go out for lunch.

Neither of us knew that day, when we woke in the morning, that it would be the last morning we would ever wake together, next to each other. The night before, when we kissed and went to sleep, neither of us knew it was the last night we would ever sleep together, ever feel the warmth of each other together, spooning, being as close as we could. Karen remained at the hospital for 12 days, then she was moved into hospice. In all, I sat by her side for 28 days.

For almost every minute of that time, I held her hand as we always did, even when I was driving (it was a source of some amusement to our French friends. “Look at the old Americans still holding hands like schoolkids”).

I am a far better person for Karen being in my life. She made me a better man; a better person. It is, in fact, as if my life began on that night in 1990. She was, after 33 years, the Other Half of me. She challenged me and she inspired me. For two years in France I blogged about our life there, and she was often my good-natured foil…if only because she so often made me laugh. In retrospect, much of the blog was a love tome to her.

She wore a tee shirt that said, “I know things. I read. It’s what I do”, and if anything summarized one aspect of Karen Motylewski, it was that shirt.

The other part was known so intimately by me, that she was the kindest, most genuinely caring, and instinctively good person I’ve ever known, and everyone who knew her felt and understood that about her. People loved her.

I often told her that she made me a better man; that she was the most caring soul I had ever known; that our two kids, now adults, were far better adults and far better persons than they would have been had she not come into their lives; that my kids loved her as their birth mom, meant it and called her “mom”.

But more than anything, I told her I was so proud to say, I am the husband of Karen Motylewski. It is a privilege to be your husband. I meant every word. The day before we went to the hospital she was in the kitchen. Our eyes met, she put down what she was holding and we embraced, and I told her then, as I had told her so many times before, that when our eyes meet like that, she still makes my knees a little weak and my heart flutter.

For 33 years, from the moment our eyes first met, our life was one long conversation. Cabbages and kings I called it. We spoke of everything. When we wondered about something, needed some help, or if we had just read something unusual, we would turn to each other… for knowledge, for opinion, for help—so often, for help. It was a conversation that began in November of 1990. It ended on an early July evening.

Now all that remains is a dark, bottomless silence. And conversations that will never happen.

Karen Claire Motylewski Nov 15, 1947- July 11, 2023