My Moment of Unbridled Joy During This Dark Time
In recently watching a Broadway play, I experienced the kind of happiness that transcended the ugliness in the nation's capital, John Harwood writes.
It’s hard to feel good during the radical, retrograde, cruel opening act of Donald Trump’s second presidency, not least because I presently have the flu.
But I discovered last week that it’s not impossible. I had an experience of unbridled joy that transcended the ugliness in the nation’s capital. Allow me, if just for a moment, to share it with you.
It was an exploration, on a Broadway stage, of the most profound human emotions: love and loss, longing and fear, hope and resilience, facing mortality and finding reprieve. The actors brought it to life – my life.
No, their play ‘Left on Tenth’ was not written about me. It actually tells the real-life story of its playwright, Delia Ephron. But considering the uncanny resemblance between specific events in her life and mine, it might as well have been my autobiography.
You’ll recognize Delia’s last name. Her older sister, Nora Ephron, earned wide acclaim for writing the romantic comedies ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ among others. Raised in a family of writers, they sometimes collaborated - you may remember the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan vehicle ‘You’ve Got Mail’ – before Nora succumbed to Acute Myeloid Leukemia in 2012.
Three years after Nora’s passing, Delia suffered another brutal blow. After a long, happy marriage, at age 71, she lost her husband to cancer.
For many people, such a loss puts romantic love in the rearview mirror. Delia expected it would for her.
What followed was one of those miraculous accidents of life.
Working through her grief, Delia wrote a funny essay for the New York Times about her misadventures in trying to disconnect her late husband’s telephone landline. Peter Rutter, a man Nora had once fixed Delia up with for a teenage date, who had also lost his spouse, read it and sent a friendly note.
Neither septuagenarian was counting on a relationship. He lived in San Francisco; she in Manhattan.
But first over email, then via telephone, and finally in person, Delia and Peter found what we all seek – a bright, nourishing, soul-filling love.
Within a few months, the cross-country couple faced the severest of trials. Delia was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, the blood cancer that had taken Nora.
Instead of tragedy, however, their crisis produced the ultimate expression of devotion. Peter nursed her through every frightening, painful moment. They married in the hospital.
The climactic step in her treatment was a bone marrow transplant.