Phil Rice

Staring into the Sun: a Wedding Story

In the final weeks of 2009, Janice and I began making plans for her to move from her little apartment in Sevier County, Tennessee and join me in my little house in Pittsburgh. I had spent the previous eight years being a single parent for my son Paul and had not expected to even consider changing that status until he had graduated, but with his blessing, our home was officially opened to include Janice during his final high school years.

For my part there was no doubt about the arrangement. As I told her, I am a man who is comfortable with solitude, but I had come to recognize that she was the companion with whom I wished to spend the rest of my life. Simple. The idea of marriage was discussed but set aside for practical reasons—namely, the fact that the process of caring for my mother in recent years had left me financially ruined. Better for Janice's sake to keep our credit ratings separate for the time being. This was my suggestion, not hers, but she well understood the logic.

So in the midst of a snowstorm that dumped two feet of snow on Pittsburgh in February 2010, Janice moved in with us. We each embraced our life together and reveled in what quickly became a wonderful home. A few months later, as my finances began showing signs of recovery, I began to contemplate and revisit the marital possibilities.

Admittedly, my own experiences and observations over the years had led me to hold a rather cavalier attitude toward the institution of marriage. Not that I had anything against the concept, I just felt that it was too often an unnecessary misrepresentation of the truth. But Janice still held the idea in high esteem. She had previously been married for many years to a man who had treated her, at the best of times, as a prized possession. In her own efforts to seek spiritual growth, she had moved well beyond such bounds, but she still saw our being married as an ideal worth pursuing. Since it mattered to Janice, it mattered to me.

I proposed marriage on November 14, and she happily accepted. We made tentative plans to have a small ceremony somewhere in the Smoky Mountains in early spring of the coming year. We discussed various scenarios and thoroughly enjoyed looking at tomorrow together. The horizon was bursting with unbridled joy.

One month after the engagement Janice was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. Initially I was told that with treatment she could expect to live from twelve to sixteen months. That gave us a goal—once Janice recovered from the brain surgery we would make a trip to the mountains and be married, surrounded by friends and family. But after a few weeks it became apparent that she would not be able to make such a trip. In fact, she was unlikely to ever leave the hospital. With that in mind, I made arrangements with an Episcopal priest to perform a little ceremony in the family waiting room at West Penn Hospital. With Paul as my best man, Janice and I exchanged wedding vows on January 31, 2011.

Two weeks later I carried her across the threshold of our house and placed her in the hospital bed that had been provided by a hospice service. Our living room had been transformed into an infirmary, and this is where we lived as husband and wife. While it is difficult to comprehend, having her home—in our home—was a true blessing. At first she was cognizant of the situation and able to interact on many levels. Though her ability to communicate verbally was limited, we spent many hours just "being" together, holding hands and nuzzling. But the cancer did not give us much of a window. She declined rapidly. On March 3, with me holding her hand and Paul and her sister Jennifer at her side, Janice eased out of this physical world.

There is much more to the story, of course. But climbing from that shattered world and committing the experience to art is akin to exploring the inside of the sun. To stare directly at the core in an attempt to pull a description means incineration. Better to focus on the edges, the shadows, the reflections—to approach the core cautiously and well-filtered. Even then, the possibility that I will venture beyond the point of no return remains ever present.  

Indeed, the intense pain and multi-level anxieties exist in ways and places that words can't approach, but I will write about it nonetheless. I have little choice. And, as I constantly remind myself, the primary motivation behind my writing about it must be a loving compassion, not just for Janice but for myself and for the reader. To embrace any other agenda dishonors the story.

And thus do I write, with Janice, in the sunshine.

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