The other day, I had a nice massage. 

Lately I’ve been weary and overwhelmed, what with the bursitis, the dental work, and the audiologist. So I found a good massage therapist and signed up, and after the session, I felt marvelous. 

I went home and did my chores, and around ten, instead of feeling good, I started feeling lonely. 

That was weird. 

Then I realized why. My husband used to rub my feet every night, for decades, until three years ago.

I hated most of his television shows, and he loved to watch television. He liked Seinfeld. He liked dark Swedish mysteries with gloomy protagonists and horrid crimes. He liked Cops, god help him, and that show Joan Rivers was on before she died. He enjoyed putdowns, punishment, sarcasm, and nihilism. It made him laugh and laugh. 

I don’t like watching television at all, honestly.

But my husband always wanted me to sit with him when he watched. He was always afraid I was going to leave him; he told people he kept expecting to come home and find me gone. That was because he mistook my independence for indifference. 

I was never going to leave him. He didn’t believe me. No matter how many times I told him.

I used to joke that all our arguments were about the nature of reality.

So every night he would say, “All right, come on, let’s get it over with,” and hold his hands out. I would swing my feet into his lap, and he would rub my feet for a long, long time. 

He got cancer in 2020.

He still rubbed my feet almost until the end. 

Then his hands got too weak and he was too busy dying. He tried once, and it was like having a trembling ghost touch me. That was in the summer of 2022. He died in early fall of that year.

Last night, when I realized why I was lonely, I felt better. I don’t mind being lonely. I’m used to it now. But he would be surprised how much I miss him. He would be so surprised that I wasn’t the one to leave. 

I guess I won that argument.