By Betty Lou Roselle
Author Nancy Klein Maguire’s love story about her fifty year marriage: The Monk’s Widow, a memoir of a Resilient Love and Intimate Death is a fascinating and honest depiction of a marriage that has weathered many challenges because of the strong-willed and intelligent couple involved.
Nancy wonders how she and David have managed to stay together all these years. Nancy’s mother enrolled her in a convent where she stayed for 7 horrible years, leaving before taking final vows. After high school, David joined the Carthusians, an order of hermit monks. He stayed for 5 years and has fond memories of the experience.
To say both had parents who lacked parenting skills would be putting it mildly. Because of this they had to grow up too fast, becoming adults without having the joy of being carefree children. And because of this, both fight very hard to be in control of their lives as adults. They find themselves often sparring with each other over this need to control.
In 1981, Nancy wins a fellowship to Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. She stayed there while David stayed in Chicago becoming senior vice-president of human resources at Continental Bank. For six years they live apart, talking on the telephone every day and getting together every three weeks. While this might cause a strain on most marriages it worked well for them.
In 1987, David resigned from the bank and moved to Washington to start his own consulting business. Living together again is a big adjustment. Nancy decides to focus on her work as she and David argue about who is in control. Through all this, you can see they both have tremendous respect for each other.
In 1996, they buy a home in the Allegheny Mountains. Nancy has settled into a writing career and David works as a life coach enjoying meditation, reading monastic books and helping Nancy with her writing. They are both contented and happy.
Unfortunately, Nancy has medical difficulties which causes them to move into a retirement home on Lake Michigan in 2011. Nancy has breast cancer and is diagnosed with rhumatoid arthritis at the same time. David is incredible, supporting Nancy and helping her to navigate the medical system. Anyone who has suffered serious illness knows how important it is to have an advocate looking out for them.
The Maguires always assumed that Nancy, with her many illnesses would pass before David but in 2013 David is diagnosed with liver cancer. It would turn out to be cholangiocarcinoma, a bile duct cancer that is incurable and rapidly lethal. After they exhaust all possibility of a cure, they decide to devote themselves to preparing for his death.
The twenty-three months of David’s dying is hard to read. It is a brutally honest and painful journey. I personally felt that David was too controlling, wanting Nancy to stay by his side the entire time. Often we forget that it is God who is ultimately in control. On David’s last day Nancy goes to get a nurse for help and in the 42 seconds she is gone, David passes.
I don’t know if Nancy and David’s total focus on his dying is how to handle death but the fact that these two unique people shared a great love is never in doubt.
Nancy Klein Maguire is an incredibly talented writer and I hope she follows up this book with one on her next chapter in life. She is back at home in the Allegheny Mountains.
The Monk’s Widow, a memoir of a Resilient Love and Intimate Death is available at www.amazon.com.