Joggers stream past me. I’m seated on a park bench by myself with an ocean of tears dammed up inside.
A couple who liked to walk the Minuteman Bikeway installed this bench so fellow pedestrians could rest and take in nature. Bikers zip by, one hooked up to a bike trailer containing a toddler. A young man on a Segway sails past.
I turn away from this evidence of civilization. Green leaves flutter in the breeze. I marvel at their simplicity. Being a leaf would be easier than a woman separated from her 85-year-old husband by the Atlantic Ocean.
Sven is in Luleå, Sweden, with a fractured femur. I returned to Boston to promote my new book and three weeks into this forced separation of ours, he went for a walk by himself and fell.
We met in France. I spotted Sven in the teachers’ parking lot at the Lycée International in St. Germain-en-Laye, my daughters’ school. He was hard to miss, holding a bouquet of pink roses high above his head as he zigzagged between cars.
I wondered who would be lucky enough to receive such a fine bouquet from such an attractive man. I never found out, but we happened to meet later that week at a cocktail party hosted by the German Section. I stood with an American Section teacher as Sven approached.
It’s strange how certain moments become engraved in memory. I know exactly what I was wearing: a black pencil skirt and a silk cobalt blue blouse. The reception hall smelled of bratwurst canapés, distributed by German parents, the women dressed in dirndls.
“You must know Sven,” the American Section teacher said.
“I don’t,” I replied with a smile. “But I’m counting on you for an introduction.”
The author and Sven on their wedding day, August 15, 1997, in Strömstad, Sweden.
Men don’t usually talk about their children. Sven did. He had two teenage sons in Luleå, near the Arctic Circle, and two older sons off on a trip around the world. During our brief conversation, we established that we both enjoyed nature walks. I let an adequate amount of time pass and sent an invitation to explore a local park. We’ve been walking together ever since.
During a walk last August, Sven made a strange declaration: “I intend to live four more years.”
Perhaps he had managed to tune in to some frequency that eludes the rest of us and received this esoteric message? I was picking wildflowers north of Strömstad, the seaside town where he built a summer house in 1980.
Now, seated beside the Bikeway in Boston, I study leaves and reflect on how my life will change once Sven is no longer alive. Since I’m nine years younger, it’s probable that he will die first — in one month or one year or the four he predicts.
We don’t talk about such things. Who does?
Life will bestow a new title on me: widow. I’ve been a wife, mother, ex-wife to my first husband, daughter, concubine. Widow is a word that weighs heavily. Widow conjures up women clad in heavy black clothing, face covered by a black veil to hide red-rimmed eyes.
“If he goes back to Sweden, he’s going to die there,” my daughter warned.
She wanted me to convince him to stay in Boston. Who was I to try and change Sven’s mind? I lived in France from 1969 to 1997. All those years abroad made me understand the ache of missing a homeland. His decision to retire from teaching and follow me to the United States came as a relief. For a dozen years, we ran a green bed and breakfast in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
The author and Sven at Wellfleet’s Chez Sven. "We served as the green innkeepers from 2004-2016," she writes.
Sven has lived in Scandinavia for over a year. He can’t return to Boston because his green card is no longer valid. I tried to join him permanently in Sweden, but my request for a “personal number” was denied, despite my 30-year marriage to a Swede.
Then Sweden experienced the worst winter in 50 years. In February, while I was visiting him, I slipped on ice hidden in grass and suffered a concussion. We discovered that local politicians had closed the hospital in Strömstad, so anyone needing an emergency room would have to travel two hours to the “regional” hospital. Sweden subsidizes ambulance travel for its citizens. Americans are left to fend for themselves.
Sven FaceTimes me.
“I understand how traumatic living in Sweden was for you,” he says out of the blue and I am reminded of why I love my husband so much.
Yesterday, an ambulance transported him from the rehabilitation center to the Luleå Hospital for an X-ray. Lying on a gurney in a corridor, he spent nine hours waiting to see a doctor. From his tone, I sensed distress at the inefficiency of the Swedish health care system, as well as sadness at now being an incapacitated former athlete.
Sven used to jog twice a week. On one of our first dates, he drove me to the Parc de Marly, an expanse of green in the busy western suburbs of Paris. It’s a spectacular place with lots of light, where ancient trees flank well-groomed paths, wide and walkable.
I walked around the park one time while Sven made two full circles, waving as he jogged past. Then we sat in the grass beside the reflecting pool, and he summoned up past lives. We knew each other in Viking times, he said. Believe it or not, this fantastic story presented a fun way to spend the afternoon, goose bumps and all. My new lover, the occasional medium.
Afterwards, we went to a bustling café in the village adjacent to the park and drank draft beer while pinball machines chimed away.
“What do you do?” Sven asked.
“I’m a writer,” I said.
He frowned. “Tough profession.”
That was the first time he reached for my hand. I didn’t yet know that we’d share a life, but I anticipated joy.
And joy we did have. No arguments, no quarrels.
"This is the spectacular view from Sven's house in Sweden," the author writes.
My future now holds other emotions. The loneliness of attending a book reading by myself. The sadness of watching a documentary without the thoroughly thought-provoking discussion Sven would initiate. The shock of finding his bedroom empty, no matter how many months have passed. The pain of being unable to share memories. We would often reminisce about the cozy hotel room at Pensao Londres in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto, the air scented with both the sea and my Body Shop massage oil. Not that we looked out the window much on that vacation.
I miss the rituals that never seemed important: our daily walk, our conversations, sharing a leisurely dinner, the warm hugs. I liked being able to reach out and stroke his cheek. On Sunday morning, I always brought him The New York Times. We’d listen to Fareed Zakaria on CNN and feel grateful that someone was able to help us make sense of the craziness in today’s world.
It was the experience of being treated like an alien and the grim reality of being unable to avail myself of Boston’s renowned hospital network that produced my ambivalence at the idea of a permanent move back to Europe. At 77, part of me has become unwilling to risk injury in a foreign country. I certainly won’t go in winter anymore. Summer, perhaps?
A long-distance relationship is certainly a possibility. My friend Carolyn lives in Boston, while her French husband remains in Paris. They visit each other several times a year, often for the holidays. Sarah, my college roommate, orchestrated a move away from her Irish husband during COVID-19. They staked out different neighborhoods in Dublin and meet for dinner from time to time. Sarah says I should use Carolyn’s model for my relationship with Sven.
I don’t worry about his living in Luleå without me because I know his sons will visit, and they’ve assured me that he will receive assistance from the Swedish Social Services, which prioritizes helping elderly citizens. Love continues after a husband or partner is no longer physically present — but I do have a problem with this separation. We talk twice a day. And hearing his voice makes me happy. Still, FaceTime cannot replace human touch, which is essential to well-being. I miss him so much!
We had hoped to grow old together. Our marriage vows keep coming back to me: “In sickness and in health.” How can I not be there to hold his hand?
At 86, he does not have many years left.
"We paused for a selfie on one of our spring walks — lilacs are big in Sweden," the author writes.
I get up from the bench and walk back to our house alone. In my garden, I admire the peony’s curve as it leans toward the sun. I listen to the catbird’s melodious song. I breathe in the fragrant spring air. I don’t feel sorry for myself. We had 36 exuberant years together. Feeling sad now serves no purpose.
But when Sven does die, the dam will burst, and the tears will flow.
Alexandra Grabbe is a former talk show host in Paris, a former green innkeeper on Cape Cod, and a forever writer. “The Nansen Factor: Refugee Stories,” a collection of her linked short stories, was published by Academic Studies Press’s imprint Cherry Orchard Books in June. Her new blog can be accessed from her website, Alexandragrabbe.com .
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