65 years is a long time, but not long enough to live with a man you love, argue, laugh, and cry with. He was my eyes and I was his ears. Our history was overwhelming. Filled with his love of teaching mathematics, education, politics, art, protest marches, traveling, having children and finding and keeping friends for a lifetime all over the country.

I will miss him for so many reasons. I will miss not seeing him across the table eating with me. Having him read the newspaper and my mail to me because of my failing eyesight. Helping me with all the technical stuff I could not do around the house. Fighting for social justice together all of our lives. Reading his editorials in the newspaper. Kevelling about our children and grandchildren. Yelling at him for buying so much to feed an army at Costco, when it was only the two of us. Pleading with him to get off of the computer and take walks with me. Making Jeritos for family and friends. Being with him at the Columbia River in Skamania Washington, a place he loved so dearly.

He loved analyzing scientific and political situations and having dialogues with people of all ages. His love of mathematics and philosophy, as well as science. I will miss his arguments that God doesn’t exist, and his love to prove people wrong. I will miss not winning an argument with him. His intellectual curiosity, his generosity to the causes he believed in, his lousy jokes, his compassion to the world and the people in need, his sense of humor, his disregard for fancy clothes, his TEVA shoes, our watching Jon Stewart together, his stubbornness, his wittiness, his skepticism, and his love of innovative art, and especially his love of his entire family and friends he cherished. I will miss cooking for him. I will miss the cribbage games we played at night and the poetry and articles he read me in bed. I will miss going with him to his favorite hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant. I will miss the walks we took together with our canes.

He was my lover and my friend, my husband. It would take 65 years to list everything that I will miss about him. He was an exceptional man, bigger than life itself. I will miss him, I will miss him.