Would you marry someone who is about to die?
November 12th 2006 00:36
Rove and Belinda
This is not to suggest that Rove McManus was sure that Belinda Emmett would die when he married her. They were probably filled with hope that the medical profession with their endless needles, probing and experimentation would deliver them from the horrid disease that afflicted her for so many years. She was diagnosed with cancer at 24. But being an intelligent man there would have resided deep down in the kernel of his perceptions the realization that one day he would lose her and so he has to be accorded that spiritual award we give to people who make a genuine personal sacrifice for others. I say genuine because no amount of praise or backslapping will make up for the suffering he has to go through. Though it will mean little to nothing to him, full credit goes to him for being one of the elevated ones who choose to love and marry someone who is about to die.
Beauty before the ravages of time
How many of us could make the decision to marry someone who is about to die. During the Second World War and many other conflicts there were many, mostly women, who married fully realizing that their partners had a very great risk of dying. The history of the First World War has many stories of women who married men knowing that they were about to be eaten by the trenches.
Immortal Elf
The idea that you marry someone who is going to die before you is wonderfully dealt with in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It is inevitable that this theme of sacrifice which has tremendous romantic power should appeal strongly to the writers and makers of legend. Arwen, played by Liv Tyler in the movie, must decide if she will marry Aragom. She is immortal and therefore is choosing to watch him age and die before her. She is warned about this by her father Hugo Weaving and the tragic event is vividly foretold as part of the movie.
Fatherly advice
How many of us could go down this path?
There are some who choose it but not out of personal sacrifice. They choose it for personal gain. Perhaps we should reserve for them a special condemnation. We don’t however and in the case of Anna Nicole Smith, a shocking blouse of a woman, a tasteless drunken display of a person who has now be elevated to stardom with her own television show. This is worth watching if only for its horror value. She petulates her way through it with her pathetic over indulging minders like some vulgar orgy lacking only the sex. She found her way into the bed of a billionaire who did not have the capacity to consummate the marriage and could only watch her flaunt herself in some last Shah Jihan-like indulgence. Shah Jihan, the builder of the Taj Mahal killed himself with poisonous aphrodisiacs. The first Emperor of China suffered a similar fate. The stories that surround Nicole including the tragic death of her son from a drug overdose complete the whole nightmare scenario.
The Smith Family
It is hard to comprehend what it must be like to fill a marriage bed with someone you love in full realization that it is soon to be empty and it must be empty with that special kind of emptiness. This could lead to many reflections such as those which dwell on people who marry the incapacitated and paralyzed or choose to remain and see out the end with a disabled person who will surely die early. Dana Reeve was such a person. A singer and actor in her own right she died within two years of her husband’s death. She chose to remain with him until the end. It’s hard to see all the death and tragedy that surrounded this couple in a positive light except to say that perhaps death for her had a merciful element in that unlike Arwen who is doomed to live with her loss forever, Dana is allowed to follow her lover.
Immortal Wife
Not every one is strong enough to take this journey and there are many examples of young people whose partners become seriously brain damaged and incapacitated who choose to end the relationship and marry other people. Who can blame them? It is not for us to judge as we so often do and maybe, when I think about it, if we should not be in the business of making judgments let’s not condemn Anna Nicole either. Let’s just celebrate those who can make this sacrifice to give comfort to their loved ones and pray that we don’t have to go there.
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Comment by katyzzz
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How soon with they die and how rich are they?
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Apparently there was a measure of disenchantment and neglect at the end, so the man’s children complained. Maybe he went on longer than she expected or got sick of cake.
Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
My grandfather died when my father was twelve, and his wife never knew he was going to die. Another friend of mine completely disappeared in the Philippines one day, leaving his wife with nothing but a mystery.
In a fucked up sort of way, I guess there might be a comfort in knowing when you or your loved one will die, so it won't come so suddenly.
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
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We live, we learn and we fall in love with some who is desitined to die. It is a lottery for some people but for others the odds more certain.
I think what is most important is not when the dream will end but how good was the time together.
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Cities dying of thirst.